WIDIASIH Ni Nengah

Origin of Impairment
Acquired (Athlete, 05 Dec 2017)

Impairment Details
She has an impairment to her legs after contracting polio at age three. (Athlete, 05 Dec 2017; indosport.com, 21 Apr 2017)

General
NAME TWIN
She is one of two Para powerlifters from Indonesia to be called Ni Nengah Widiasih. Both athletes come from Bali and competed at the 2018 Asian Para Games in Indonesia. To separate the pair, she is often referred to as Widi, while the other athlete, who was born in 1980, is known as Nengah. (nusabali.com, 11 May 2019; asiangames.tempo.co, 11 Oct 2018)

OCCUPATION
She works as a civil servant at the Indonesian Ministry of Youth and Sports. (barbend.com, 12 Apr 2020; kemenpora.go.id, 08 Jan 2020)

EARLY DAYS
She took up wheelchair racing at age 12 and competed in national events. "I started wheelchair racing when I was 12 years old and competed in some national competitions. After two years of that, I started powerlifting. Actually, I didn't settle for powerlifting because at that time I didn't understand what powerlifting really was. I just followed my brother to training and then his coach asked me to start training too. And every day, the coach pushed me to keep training in the sport. Sometimes I cried, because at that age, powerlifting was so hard. But luckily, I had a brother and a coach who were very patient, and trained me until my first international competition." (barbend.com, 12 Apr 2020)

In 2016 she became the first athlete representing Indonesia to win a medal in powerlifting at the Paralympic Games when she claimed bronze in the 41kg category in Rio de Janeiro. (SportsDeskOnline, 08 Sep 2016)