Q: You were brought up in the East End of London, close to the Olympic Park - what are your hopes for London 2012? What do you want it to be?
First and foremost I want it to be successful. I want us to show the world what the UK is capable of and one of the things about us in the UK is when we get behind something, our fans, our public are amazing in the kinds of support they can give you.
My final appearance playing for GB was in the Paralympic World Cup in 2005 in Manchester and we had the British Public there. It was just amazing, it just felt so good, it felt like you were lifted by the crowd and I want that whole experience and I want people to feel that experience and to feel the power of the Olympics and the Paralympics. For the athletes it will be an amazing experience and I want the general public to feel and understand the power of the Games
The other thing I want us to do is to change lives in the UK of the next generation, because the Olympics and Paralympics have that power - it’s the opportunity and the inspiration it can give to youngsters. Imagine what it will be like if you are 7, 8, 9, 10 even up to 15 or 16 and you watch the best athletes in the world compete, you’ll remember that for the rest of your life. You’ll never be able to forget that,
Q: What do you want the legacy of London 2012 to be?
Well, we need world class facilities our talent pool is small and if our facilities are really bad how do we expect to compete with the best countries in the world?
I think we neglected sport for too long and we were really lucky and spoilt in the 1980’s in that we had great athletes like Daley Thompson, Seb Coe and Steve Ovett. They won medals and that success hid the fact that our facilities were so poor. Countries like Australia and France were setting up academies and the Americans already had their collegiate system. Now the developing countries like China and India are going to be over taking us because they are following the models of these countries. That’s where we need to be .
London 2012’s not going to be the answer to all of these problems, we’re not going to suddenly lift up the blanket unveil the Olympics and we’ll be pulling Seb Coes and Daley Thompsons out of our back pockets but what London 2012 will be is the platform and the stepping stone. It’s been said before you have to look at London 2012 with 20:20 vision because the aim is by 2020 that’s when the ball will be rolling and we’ll be on our way.
Q: What are the issues facing UK getting the best Paralympic team for London 2012?
The size of our talent pool is the biggest issue facing the UK. We are a relatively small country in terms of population. Of the 60million people in the UK, around 2million have disabilities. Maybe 200,000 of those want to play sport in any meaningful way. Out of that group we’ll be lucky to get 20,000 who are any good, and then even fewer who might be potential medal winners. When you compare that to the countries we are going to be competing against, the USA has a population of 120million people. The Chinese people have 22million disabled people to choose from.
Because of that we have to concentrate our efforts in the selection process. We haven’t got time to make mistakes. We have to increase the knowledge of the availability of our sports. Not many people know what sports are available to them and how to get involved. People only talk about Paralympics every four years, but the Paralympics are not the only time we have disabled sports events. There are European Championships, World Championships as well as events like the European Champions League for disabled basketball. We have to increase the profile of our sports.
Not many people know for example that at elite level, able bodied people are able to play wheelchair basketball. We need to get information out. At the moment it is usually me and Tanni Grey-Thompson who people recognise. There should be many more than that.
Q: When you were growing up, was there a stigma attached to playing wheelchair basketball or other disabled sports?
If you used a wheelchair there was the perception that you were intellectually slow, not as intelligent as an able bodied person. There was a stigma of being in a wheelchair.
I tried to hide the fact that I had a disability. I would never look at myself in mirrors as I was walking down the street, because that was the only time I felt disabled. My friends would say, ‘you don’t seem like a disabled person,’ and so when I was asked to play wheelchair basketball I was shocked, disgusted even. People in wheelchairs playing basketball? That’s sick.
Looking back now I can see why I took that view because we didn’t see many people in the media with disabilities. If I hadn’t thought like that I would have started playing when I was seven years old, and maybe even gone to the Barcelona Paralympic Games in ’92. I would have gone to three or four Games rather than two, and maybe I would have had a Gold Medal. That was due to my ignorance and ignorance in society. Things are changing, and they are different from my time. You meet kids now and they are far more open, and acknowledge disability and are cool with it. But there are still problems, we haven’t overcome it.
Q: How long did it take to get over these barrier?
My wheelchair basketball life was a secret, clandestine world which my able bodied friends knew nothing about. I never told my friends that I was selected to play for Great Britain, I never invited them to a club game. I was proud of what I was doing, but I was still a bit embarrassed about what they’d think. I remember the first time I played basketball at school in my wheelchair, there were some kids who would laugh at me – until I hit a few shots and they saw how good I was. In a way I had to prove myself. I didn’t want anyone to know I played until I was good. If they are going to come and see me I have to be the best. I didn’t want them to laugh at me, or at the sport. I felt like the whole reputation of our sport was on my shoulders.
It was only when I was about twenty that I let my friends in and let them know what I was doing. I talked to them about football, and other things, but never about wheelchair basketball.
Q: What’s it like being at an Olympic and Paralympic Games?
It’s the best feeling – that’s when you know you’ve made it. I remember getting into the Olympic village in Sydney, getting my accreditation and just being really excited. After we’d sorted out our room allocations a couple of us went out for lunch in the dining hall and that’s when you realised you were at an Olympics. You go into the dining hall and there’s about 7,000 athletes from all over the world, you hear all these different languages being spoken, see people in different team kits and you’re just amazed. And they’re all in one hall, the marathon runners, basketball players, shot putters, swimmers and it’s almost like a dream, it’s so surreal. You think, this is what I’ve been dreaming about and talking about for years and I’m actually here and it feels like an out of body experience. I went through the whole of Sydney just with a smile on my face, thinking this is great.
Q: What has had the biggest impact on your career?
My career has been like an avalanche building. On their own these moments don’t seem significant but put together. The BBC ident everyone talks about. Being a successful Paralympic athlete, working on children’s TV, making the Beyond Boundaries documentary. All these things snowballed.