This Queens Athlete Is Headed To His 6th Paralympic Games

QUEENS — When the Paralympic Games in Tokyo kick off this August, there will be a Queens resident on the roster for the sixth time.

Tahl Leibovitz, an Israeli-born table tennis player, will represent the United States in the multi-sport event for athletes with disabilities, which follows the Olympics.

Leibovitz, who won a gold medal at his first Paralympic Games in 1996, has called New York home since he was three years old, when he moved to Howard Beach, Queens with his father. And while the World's Borough is where the athlete discovered table tennis, he didn't have an easy childhood otherwise.

His father struggled with substance abuse, so for stretches of time as a young adult, Leibovitz was homeless. “I’d play table tennis in the day, and at night I would take the trains everywhere," he told the Times Of Israel.

After hours of practice in Rego Park's Lost Battalion Hall and the South Boys and Girls Club of Queens — as well as training at the U.S. Olympic Committee’s center in Colorado — Leibovitz became a world-class table tennis player.

In addition to his gold Paralympic medal, Leibovitz took home two bronze awards, one in 1996 and another in 2004. Today, he is ranked 35th in all men's standing classes, and 9th in class 9, which is among the least severe of the 11 classes used to categorize Paralympians.

Ramirez will be among hundreds of athletes from the United States Paralympic team at the Toyko games, which kick off on August 24 and end September 5.

A full schedule for the Tokyo games can be found here.