Incredible story of Paralympics star who was abandoned as a child by her parents before getting second chance in life

JOY HAIZELDEN has no resentment about being abandoned as a child by her parents.

One of Britain’s top wheelchair basketballers was born in the Chinese province of Shaanxi in the winter of 1998 with spina bifida.

This is a birth defect where there is an incomplete closing of the spine and it causes significant mobility issues.

Diagnosis of such kind would be a challenge for any newborn to deal with, let alone the mum and dad.

Yet unacceptably and unforgivably, her maternal parents rejected their disabled infant.

And barely two or three months after she was born, she was dropped off at a local orphanage and left to survive in the hands of others.

While this might have been commonplace back then in China, it is a scandal what happened but Haizelden, reflecting on her upbringing a quarter of a century later, is not sad or angry.

In fact, thanks to the love and support of British parents who lovingly adopted her, she has enjoyed a fulfilled life of elite sport and academia.

Haizelden told SunSport: “I guess my birth parents tried to look after me. I think they tried their best.

“They must have been overwhelmed. I don’t have any resentment. I understand their situation. It’d have been very difficult to raise a disabled child.

“With the rules in China, being female and disabled, it didn’t work back then. I don’t have any anger or frustration.

“But with what I’ve achieved now, it’d have been such a waste if I had stayed in that care home.”

As fate would have it, Jim and Margaret Haizelden – the latter was an assistant at a special needs school – saw the three-year-old Joy in the orphanage while on church missionary work.

The Southampton couple had to be patient because it took three years for the adoption to go through legal hoops.

But by the age of six, Haizelden moved 5,000 miles to the UK’s South Coast, learning a new language and acclimatising to British life.

She recalled: “It’s pretty amazing that my adoptive parents took a very, very big chance on me. It’s definitely a second chance.

“Their faith played a lot as well. God was telling them it was the right thing to do.

“Perseverance was key. They had a lot of obstacles in the adoption process so they could have given up at any time., But they knew it was the right thing to do.

“It was very weird. I didn’t speak English at all. When I was on the train to the main airport, I cried the whole way.

“I want to give 100% in whatever I do in life. I want to prove disabled people can be successful – in sport and academia. Challenge any stereotypes.”

That second chance in life was amplified first in wheelchair basketball – Paris will be her third Paralympics – and in education.

Haizelden studies in Alabama in the United States – she is doing a PhD in health education and promotion – and also trains with some of the best American basketballers.

Trips across the Atlantic to Loughborough training camps are possible thanks to National Lottery funding because she is one of more than 1,100 elite athletes on the World Class Programme.

Britain begin their campaign on Thursday morning against Spain at the Bercy Arena and after the flop in Tokyo in 2021 – they were seventh out of 10 nations – their objective is simple.

They want to come away from the French capital with the first medal won by the women’s team in the competition’s 56-year history.

Haizelden said: “Tokyo was one of the worst results while I’ve been on the team.

“We want to get that medal for our country. The first ones to make history. This team definitely has potential to do that. That’s what drives us. That’s the goal.”

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