Who is Bebe Vio and how she became a Paralympic champion

Bebe Vio was eleven years old and had been fencing since she was five, with the same ease other girls run about in the playground. Then a fulminant meningitis turned everything upside down within hours, and doctors, in order to save her life, had to amputate her legs and forearms.

What happened afterwards is the part of the story that strikes hardest. Bebe didn't stop to mourn what she'd lost: she went back to school, took up training again, learned to hold a foil with a body that was no longer the same as before. Not because she wasn't afraid, but because she chose to keep being herself, with whatever she had at that moment.

And that choice took her far. Bebe became one of the strongest fencers in the world, winning gold and bronze medals at the Paralympics, along with world and European titles. But anyone watching her on the piste doesn't just see a champion: they see a young woman who laughs, who jokes with her opponents before and after bouts, who talks about herself without ever asking for pity.

There's something else Bebe has done, perhaps even more important than the medals. Together with her family, she founded art4sport, an association that helps other amputee children get sports prostheses and get back to running, swimming, fencing. Because she knows what it means to lose something and find a way to carry on living as before, and she didn't want to keep that chance to herself.

Her story reaches children without needing much explaining. Watching her move on the piste, quick and sure, is enough to understand that a body can change and still be capable of great things. It's a lesson that doesn't need the right words to explain it: you just see it.

This is where "Bebe Vio" comes from, the book from The Great Heroes collection dedicated to her, telling children her story with illustrations and a narrative rhythm made just for them.