RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A few months before U.S. table tennis player Tahl Leibovitz left his home in Queens, N.Y., for the Rio Paralympic Games, his wife, Dawn, heard a bang late at night. They didn't identify the source of the noise until their neighbor told them her air conditioner had fallen onto their car.
The neighbor was low on money but wanted to pay for the damage eventually. Leibovitz refused the offer.
"He understands what it's like to be in a dark place," his wife said.
Amid a childhood scarred by an uneasy relationship with his father and long periods of homelessness, Leibovitz found table tennis.