Former F1 driver Alex Zanardi wins Paralympic gold.

He won his hand-cycling time trial event on Wednesday, the day before the 15-year anniversary of that horrific car crash.

Alex lost his legs back in 2001 at American Memorial 500 Cart in 2001 in one of the most horrendous crashes recorded. But he never lost his drive or his competitive edge.

But Zanardi, now aged 49, has never stopped working on himself and he never lost his drive or his competitive edge. He has also won eight world titles since first racing a hand bike in 2009.

The culmination of his fighting spirit so far is winning the 20km hand-cycling race by 2.74 seconds for this gold medal in Rio - his third in total.

“Normally I don’t thank God for these type of things as I believe God has more important stuff to worry about, but today is too much, I had to raise my eyes and thank him,” Zanardi said. “I feel very lucky, I feel my life is a never-ending privilege.”

As a driver he had won both the 1997 and 1998 CART series champion before losing his legs. After the accident he went 50 minutes with less than one liter of blood in his body, and his heart stopped beating seven times.

“At the time I was asked if I would ever step back in a race car, but what was very important for me was to go into the bathroom and pee on my own, but I could not do that. I had to be helped. That was my No. 1 priority. Day by day I managed to regain control and strength, regain some confidence and concentrate on different things and here I am now.”

Since then he has been back in a race car. I can’t even think of what to type here, the man is nothing short of pure inspiration.

Zanardi will be back racing again today (Thursday) as he attempts to become Paralympic road race champion again in his class and land his fourth gold.