Echo Sport Replay: Malone surmounting life’s huge challenges to become one of Ireland’s greatest Paralympians
By Stephen Leonard
DAVID Malone is not one to shy away from adversity. Having undergone two leg amputations as a boy, the young Ballinteer lad never stopped in his drive to keep pace with his friends and stay involved.
That same tenacity helped steer him towards swimming and a career in the sport that would see him become one of the greatest Paralympic athletes this country has ever produced.
Malone won 11 major international medals for Ireland across a 16-year-long career
Indeed the Terenure club man contested no less than four consecutive Paralympic Games between 1996 and 2008, winning silver in Atlanta ’96 and Athens 2004 with his crowning moment coming in between when he captured gold in Sydney.
The former World and European champion, who set global records in the S8 100m and 200m Backstroke, has been helping guide the next generation of Irish Paralympic swimmers to international success and was inducted into both the Paralympic Ireland and Swim Ireland Hall of Fame.
Recalling his early days and his route into swimming, Malone told The Echo “I was born with a condition called arthrogryposis which is a rare bone defect. It would affect your limbs, so in my case it was your ankles and your feet.
“I lost my right leg when I was about seven and the left leg about 18 months after.
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