2008 - Beijing

EARLY DAYS

I first started in wheelchair basketball at the age of 9, 10 years old. And then I met Dame Tanni Grey - Thompson down at the athletics track in Bury St. Edmunds and I decided wheelchair racing was the sport for me. It was mainly like the attraction of the speed, being the only boy I was interested in the speed I got to Tanni about the racing chair and I was just amazed at how light they were then and now they are even lighter, so its really spectacular.

As a junior in Gateshead I won the junior Great North run, I think it was about 3 times in a row and it’s a fantastic race and as a junior I also won the London mini marathon twice overall as well. But I remember the London mini marathon when they used to be racing along, and the police were telling us we were on the wrong side of the road. The start had gone wrong but it’s a fantastic thing to do you know, compete in the London marathon fully and the Great North run which is the next major race, which I am looking forward to.

The first Para Olympics was done - by Ludwig Guttman who was in Stoke Manderville and he decided the spinal injuries and people who had injuries from car crashes needed something to do so he created the Para Olympics and that still basically the home for the GB squad. We go there for training weekends and it’s a fantastic place and that’s where the Para Olympic torch is going pretty soon.

TRAINING

A typical training session is starting about 9 o’clock in the morning and getting out on the road I tend to do 2 to 3 kilometres warm up and today’s session is 600 metre sprints with full recovery which tends to be 5 minutes recovery. Which is a hard session when you are doing 6 of them and then you do a cool down and you have to do stretches before and after because your muscles need stretching to be nice and warm.

I train 6 days a week in my chair which varies between and hour and a half and two hours most of the time. And I train once a week on the track, 3 times in the gym, no sorry twice in the gym, and twice swimming so it’s a fair bit. But you have got to put in the hours to become a Para Olympian or Olympian. And that’s what I enjoy, I enjoy the long hard slogs out on the road, its great fun and with Dame Tanni Grey - Thompson coaching me, she helps with tactics, she has got so much knowledge, she’s been to so many Para Olympic that its just fantastic to see.

With Tanni its over e-mails and phone calls because she is up north, but I’ve only really got Tayna and Ian her husband who coached me. So which is really good and really helpful, Ian’s more the technical and Tanya is more hands on with the training programme and just basically things like that.

Over the years it hasn’t changed that much, but just the quantity and the amount I am doing now myself has gone up more, so we’re doing more volume and more distances in the races, whereas before you used to have the divide between the sprinters and the middle distances.

Even the sprinters we’re doing endurance basis already so you are working on your endurance, you are working on your sprint cause there is always a sprint finish somewhere along the line. I’m quick off the start but when I am road racing I am slow down the hill because I am so light. Whereas going up the hill I shoot past them. There is a race which is the Tyne tunnel its 1 kilometre down, then 1 kilometre up I tend to be almost last at the bottom of the hill and then I finished last year in 4th place so it’s a bit of a shock when people are going past you and you are still going 40 miles an hour, but then on the climb I just fly up its like see you later.

The racing chair I’m in is top end which is made out in America it costs over 3 thousand pounds. Its got carbon fibre rear wheels and it’s just basically almost like a bike but its three wheels, it’s very low to the floor. It can get up to over 40 miles an hour in the chair which is pretty scary but its what I love the most, and I train out on the open roads,

For wheelchair racing the rules are that you are not allowed any modifications to the frame work of the chair, to make any difference to like you are not allowed a certain type of helmet, like aerodynamic helmets so there’s a fair bit and you are only allowed certain makes of chairs, certain size wheels which is really funny cause I don’t see how it makes a difference of having a bigger front wheel.

SELECTION

I compete in the 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres, but and then the 800, 1500, 5000 and marathon. You wouldn’t see that in the Olympics, guys going from the sprint to 26.2 miles on the road, and it’s a common practice nowadays for people to go out or do that.

In wheelchair racing there are 4 classifications, there’s T51 which is quadriplegics which is where you have had mainly a car crash and are really really severely injured so your hands are affected. And then T52 is where your hands have got a little bit of grip so can grip a little bit more and its all down basically to your VO2 output as well if one of your lungs is affected or anything like that and then obviously you move up to a T53, T54 category. The T stands for its track and the 54 is the category, so because I can walk a little bit and I’ve got full abdominals it means I’m a T54 whereas if you are a T53 you can’t walk and you’ve got no stomach muscles so that’s where the difference is, its really stomach muscles because I can just go up and down freely whereas they can’t, so it makes a big difference.

The distances of 100, 200, 400 & 800 are where the categories don’t mix, and then the 1500 up, they mix . So we have T53 & T54 competitors, all in the same, which is really good as when the T53’s are up to speed, they’re up with us and can still out sprint most of us. For wheelchair racing there’s maybe 150 to 160 people in the T54 category and then for, your looking at the T53 you’re looking at another 100 there, so when they all combine it’s a massive competition.

The selection process UK Athletics which is our self governing body puts qualifying times out and there is an A and a B standard and to automatically be selected you have to hit that A standard which is 80% of the world record, so its pretty high standard and they always predict what the gold medal will go at. So for Beijing I hit the 5000 metres qualifying time and I was selected for the 8, 15 and 5 and the marathon because I was so close to the other A standards which is really good and hopefully it will make us improve for 2012, so we can be top of the medal table.

BEIJING 2008

Beijing was my first Para Olympics and it was a fantastic games for me. Turning up in the village, it looked like a computer image, everything was just set up perfect. Going in the food hall for the first time, it was just massive, you were looking at all different countries there, all the different food, they even had fish n chips for some reason and it was just fantastic to see. And then the biggest memory was going into the stadium for the first time for the 5000 metres it was pitch black outside but all the lights were on and it was unreal there was 95000 people in the stadium all at the same time and the noise was spectacular. It was definitely amazing.

Beijing was a hard one for me, I had some technical issues, the web on my glove came off in the first race - the 5000 and then the 800 my mind, I just kept thinking about the rubber and if it was going to stay on for 2 laps. And then the 1500 metres my compensator came loose so when you are going round the track you hit the compensator to go round the bend and mine was just loose so it kept going straight and then on the bend - so that was pretty bad. And then the marathon my mind was just, I was completely tired, it was just a big race for me the first 3 or 4 miles we were going at my top speed all the time so it helped me improve a little bit.

FUNDING

The financial side of my wheelchair racing is I work part time for St Edmundsbury Borough Council but I’m also a lottery funded UK athletes, I get £5,000 a year which isn’t much when you tend to buy a racing chair at the beginning of the year so £3,000 of that has gone already, but it helps amazingly with like funding and its just a little option to help you out and I’m grateful for it.

We have trips when we go abroad which are a little bit funded by UK athletics, certain trips mainly to Switzerland and America. The other ones I have to pay for, that’s is why I work mainly but the Council sponsor me so they are really helpful there which is great to be able to have that help and support. When we go away on trips the transportation is normally funded so normally when we go to the races its already there and if not you just get taxis.

The main problem is making sure your chair is secure, so you tend to box it up in what we call a coffin so it’s a big box basically and the racing chair goes in it, or as I haven’t got a box at the moment I’m wrapping it up with foam and just making sure its really secure because if it get damaged then you are not going to race. So it’s a lot of money to be travelling with, but most airlines are really good with them and really safe.

LONDON 2012

2012 has come along at the right point for me, I’m going to be 27 then so I’ll be the right age to hopefully bring back some golds for Suffolk, is the main aim and I’m just really looking forward to it. Its such a privilege to have it in my era and its going to be amazing, its not going to be Beijing on the opening ceremony, but I’m sure we will beat them on the atmosphere. It’s a typical British atmosphere of where we will support everyone.

There’ll be a lot more media coverage, and press around so its going to be really stressful but its what we are in the sport for, we are in it to race so everything else doesn’t make a difference, but its just going to be a massive expectation on us being at home.