Para sport hits new levels as GB raise the bar again

New stars have emerged to give the Paralympic movement the platform to spread its message

This was a great World Championships for Great Britain and, although hopes were high, as it always is given the standing of the team, the infrastructure in place and conveyor belt of winners, it is fair to say this group of 50-plus athletes exceeded all expectations. Eighteen gold medals, that is amazing.

A new group of stars have emerged, to add to the bankers we have in the team; our well-known athletes such as sprinters Jonnie Peacock and Richard Whitehead, field athlete Aled Davies and wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft.

Cockroft is peerless in her class, and her three gold medals are testament to how hard she works. Hannah will go on to become one of the all-time greats in wheelchair racing. And to think she is still only 24, yet has won 10 world titles and five Paralymic golds.

But a new group have emerged, all of whom are young in years or in Paralympic terms, with Sophie Hahn, Sophie Kamlish, Sammi Kinghorn, Olivia Breen all gold medallists, and a new crop behind them such as Jordan Howe, Polly Maton and others. We have a spread of athletes, across the different disability groups.

We have a raft of great coaches in this country. Paula Dunn, the head of the team, deserves great credit, as do coaches such as Ian Murphy, who has done wonders in the past year with the likes of Kinghorn. Underlining this success is the fact that elite level para athletics is becoming stronger.

More countries than ever before won medals at this event. It was good to see the United States back to near-full strength, and intriguing that China’s athletes were not as dominant as they have been. It was great to see Tunisia in double figures for gold medals.

The performance on Saturday night of the Brazilian Petrucio Ferreira, in wet conditions into a headwind, in which he collected a

London has set the benchmark. It is a no-brainer for the 2019 worlds to return to the city

double sprint gold and set a 200 metres T47 world record, was para-sport at its very best.

The global stars are there, too, and that is just as important as the Paralympic movement spreads its message. The new world stars for me were Isis Holt, of Australia, the brilliant 16-year-old sprinter, the double-amputee sprinters Johannes Floors from Germany, and teenager Ntando Mahlangu of South Africa, whose spectacular fall during a heat of the men’s 100m T42 went viral. Other stars were reborn here such as gold medal-winning wheelchair racer Madison de Rozario, of Australia. That the event went out on air in 87 countries is another cause for celebration. The athletes, and indeed the International Paralympic Committee, deserve to be rewarded for their hard work.

The figures out yesterday said 304,000 tickets were sold. When you think that 315,000 tickets were sold at the Paralympic Games for athletics in Rio, you gain a perspective of just how much the British public feels for para-sport.

Over the past 10 days, sitting on the outside of the track for the first time in 20 years, I have seen deeper depth of field in most events, and closer races than I have ever witnessed across the panoply of classification groups. Not to mention the 32 world records set.

London has set the benchmark again and, for me, it is a no-brainer for the 2019 championships to return to the city. Countries who want to host it need to promote it better. Doha in 2015 was not a good championships. They paid for it, but it was the wrong country to stage it in at that time. Let’s capitalise on places where there is a deep interest. The great thing for these modern athletes, reinforced with support networks, funding and television interest, is that the times when we had few major events – outside marathon events – between Paralympic Games, are over. Now we have the European Championships next year, another World Championships in 2019, and the big one in Tokyo in 2020.

There is always work to do to educate the world, improve perceptions, increase the visibility of para sport, but the truth is that the Paralympic movement has never had as much momentum. And British supporters, our funding agencies and our athletes have played a huge part in maintaining it.