‘Paralympic’ stars set for Highland Games, led by 19-stone US army veteran and his AWESOME wheelchair. So meet...
SCOTLAND is to hold its first Highland Games ‘Paralympics’ – thanks to an extraordinary athlete nicknamed ‘The Tank’.
Disabled competitors will take part in traditional contests such as hammer-throwing and tossing the caber at this year’s Castle of Mey Games, hosted by Prince Charles.
The organisers are now including para-athletes after a plea from Alex ‘The Tank’ Armor, 31, who holds the world record for wheelchair caber tossing.
The 19-stone ex-soldier’s personal best is hurling an 18.5ft caber – weighing 135lb – a distance of 12ft.
Fitting for a US Army veteran, he uses an electric chair that resembles a tank, complete with militarystyle caterpillar treads.
He received the sturdy £6,000 chair from a non-profit group.
Mr Armor – who also enjoys hunting and fishing – said: ‘I have tried to get it stuck and I can’t. It can go through the woods and water. I can travel six miles in and out of the mountains or woods, or even for two days on flat terrain. It reopened the outdoor world to me.’
Mr Armor was retired from the army on medical grounds due to injuries and complications from his multiple sclerosis.
To ward off depression and stay motivated, he started taking part in Highland Games in 2010.
Then, only a handful of events in the US included disabled athletes. But Mr Armor – from Johnson City, Tennessee – helped change this.
He told The Scottish Mail on Sunday: ‘People like to use the term “confined to a wheelchair” – but I’m not confined by anything.
‘In the last two years I’ve done over 70 events in over 20 states and four countries.’
He contacted the Scottish Highland Games Association last year but was surprised to learn that disabled competitors – known in the US as adaptive athletes – did not take part. Captain Richard Ottley, organiser of the Mey Games, said: ‘The Scottish Highland Games Association didn’t quite know what to do with Alex, so I contacted him and said, “We’ll get you in and you can compete”.
Mr Armor and two other American adaptive athletes will take part in all nine events, and display their skills in front of the Duke of Rothesay, Chieftain of the Mey Games.
Mr Armor, who has Scottish heritage on his father’s side, said: ‘As far as I know, I was the first para-chair to toss caber in the US, and now I get to open that door in Scotland.’
He added: ‘We don’t want to make it easy, we want to make it accessible. I really hope it will open up doors for anyone who had watched and thought, “That’d be fun to do, but I can’t”. I hope this will show them they can. I mean, a guy in a wheelchair throwing a telephone pole – if that doesn’t say you can do anything, I don’t know what does.’
‘I’m not confined by anything’