Heavy Mettle

Tony Taliani may be mostly blind, but his priorities are clear: to be a damn good teacher and a helluva powerlifter.

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If you had told a 13-year-old Tony Taliani that he’d one day be a badass powerlifter, he would have likely laughed in your face.

After all, he’d just been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, an eye condition that wrecked his peripheral vision and left him observing the world “through a coffee stirrer.” Learning you’ll never get to drive, among other things, is a teenage nightmare.