Competing largely against himself, Markus Rehm – the para-athletics legend – leapt a distance of 8.43m at the World Championships last week. It fetched him his eighth long jump gold medal. But the reverberations of it were felt much beyond the podium.

Rehm, who lost his right leg in a wakeboarding accident at 14 and competes with carbon-bibre prosthetics, finds himself in the same league as the world’s best able-bodied long jumpers. His effort of 8.43m was 4cm better than Mattia Furlani’s jump, which helped him win the gold medal at the Tokyo World Championships, and 2cm better than the Indian national record. With a personal best of 8.72m, he is now aiming to do what no man has done before: break the 9 metre barrier.

On one hand, Rehm’s achievement is seen as a giant leap for para-athle

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