Hannah leading British hopes
PARALYMPICS
Tokyo, Japan (August 24-September 5)
BY ROSS HEPPENSTALL
GREAT BRITAIN will be represented at the Tokyo Paralympics by more than 220 athletes competing across 19 sports.
After a delay of a year because of the pandemic, a mix of experienced campaigners and exciting newcomers will take to the start line to represent Britain on the big stage.
There have been calls for a clearer and fairer way of grouping athletes together, to form a new classification system that is easier for a growing audience to understand.
Global viewing figures for the Rio 2016 Paralympics topped four billion, according to Statista, and could increase for Tokyo 2020, which gets under way on Tuesday.
The Paralympics will have no spectators due to Covid measures, but there is plenty of British talent to watch out for from afar, with Channel 4 offering coverage in the UK.
Paralympics GB won a total of 147 medals in 2016, up from 120 in 2012, and this year will see 42-year-old wheelchair athlete David Weir compete in his sixth Games.
Weir, who was born with a spinal-cord transection that left him unable to use his legs, is one of Britain’s most prominent Paralympians but will be hoping not to repeat his medal-less Rio 2016 appearance.
He has found some form recently and goes in the T54 1500m, 5,000m and the marathon.
Popular Yorkshire wheelchair sprinter Hannah Cockroft also has a glut of medals at the Paralympics, rising to fame at London 2012 and picking up medals at Rio 2016, too.
Cockroft, who has five
Paralympic gold medals and 10 world titles, comes into these Games in good form, having set T34 world records in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m at the World Para Grand Prix in Switzerland earlier this year.
Para-swimmer Maisie Summers-newton (below), who turned 19 last month, is already a world and European champion and a world record holder.
One of the many athletes who was inspired by London 2012, the Northampton teenager is now taking on and beating one of the stars of those Games, team-mate Ellie Simmonds.
The two athletes have the same condition achondroplasia - and Summers-newton says that seeing Simmonds in action inspired her.
Para-triathlete Dave Ellis, who is visually impaired, started his Paralympic Games journey as a swimmer at the 2008 Games in Beijing, but narrowly missed out on selection for London.
He then switched to triathlon but was devastated after his category was not included in the Rio programme when the sport made its debut.
Also keep an eye out for para-cyclist Jaco van Gass, who was serving in the Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan in 2009 when he was hit by a rocketpropelled grenade.
It left him with a collapsed lung and other internal injuries, shrapnel wounds and leg injuries.
He also lost his left arm at the elbow.
He missed out on selection for the Rio Games, but van Gass travels to Tokyo as a triple world champion on the track.
He will be chasing Paralympic glory across five races on both track and road.