Weirwolf (4 page)

Most kids aged eight might have found that
overwhelming
. I didn't. I felt special and it made me even more
determined
to compete and to keep getting better. People often talk about the moment they were inspired to go on and find the thing which defines them. For me, that was the moment.

Ironically, after that initial meeting, it would be another seventeen years before Jenny really played a central part in my life. In those days she was too busy with her career in football to devote the time to young athletes like me. She set me off on the road to becoming an athlete by introducing me to a
training
group at the Tooting Bec athletics track in Wandsworth and then went off to pursue her own sporting dream.

A decent athlete herself, Jenny ran the 400 metres and competed at international B level. But it was her time with Wimbledon Football Club that really made Jenny's name. She spent ten years with the so-called ‘Crazy Gang' as a physio and rehabilitation coach. At first you wouldn't expect football hard men like Vinnie Jones, Dennis Wise and John Fashanu to work with a woman. But they loved her. She took no nonsense from any of them and they really respected her. She helped so many of them get back to fitness and she was always finding innovative ways to help them recover from injuries. Those players saw then what I would come to see much later on when I worked with her full time. She has a special aura about her. She can put her arm around you when you are down or if you have got problems at home. She gives you that confidence you need to keep pushing yourself.

Even though she was too busy to coach me, Jenny and I stayed in touch and she often used to ask me down to Wimbledon. The players always used to make me feel really welcome. Sometimes I went to games and sat in the
dressing
room while Vinnie and Dennis were running around doing their mad stuff before matches. One time when I was about twelve and Wimbledon played Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park I remember being allowed to sit in the dugout. That was brilliant. Even though I'm an Arsenal fan it was very special to be given the privilege to see this fantastic club up close.

In those days I was a shy boy and I just used to sit back
and take it all in. John Gayle was the player who probably looked out for me the most and who I got to know the best. He was a lovely man and was always giving me lifts or taking me out for dinner. He did so much for me.

All the members of the Crazy Gang were fantastic
characters
. What always struck me was that they seemed to enjoy playing so much. They loved every minute they were playing and while it was important to do your best, work your socks off and win, it was also important to have a laugh. That attitude really made a big impression on me and I have tried to follow the same principle in my sporting career. In those days Wimbledon never seemed to be under pressure. I am sure they were, but it never came across that way. They were a fantastic club and it is a real shame that there won't be another team like them – not in my lifetime anyway. The Premier League has changed beyond
recognition
from those early years when Wimbledon were a part of it. The gulf between a club like that and big teams like Arsenal and Manchester United was always huge – even back in the 1980s and early '90s. But in these days of
super-rich
foreign owners and multi-billion-pound TV deals it's hard to see how a little club that worked its way up from non-league football with attendances of just over 15,000 could ever hope to compete. It's a shame but football is now such a big business.

With Jenny busy at Wimbledon, I got my head down and started training at Tooting.

I loved those early days. It was such a buzz to do
something I really enjoyed. The sense of freedom was immense and it really helped to take the edge off those dark days when I would get upset about things. Whenever I felt like asking ‘Why me?', I could now go out on the track and vent my anger. Maybe this is what gave me that desire, that hunger to try to do well and succeed in something.

My first coaches were a father-and-son duo called Chas and Dan Sadler. Chas was a very good wheelchair racer who often used to do the London Marathon and combined coaching down at the Tooting Bec track with a bit of racing. His son Dan, although able bodied, chose to race in a wheelchair. In those days there was nothing in the rules to prevent people without disabilities from racing in
wheelchairs
. It might seem a bit strange but because he grew up with his dad in a chair it was all very normal to him. Once in the chair he had no advantage over those in the same classification with disabilities and he raced the circuit for years.

But clearly not everyone understood why he was doing it. And a few years ago he hit the headlines when it emerged he had accepted prize money for competing in the Great North Run. Someone later spotted him getting out of his chair and told the papers and he had to hand the money back. It didn't bother me that he was able bodied but chose to race in a chair. The class was open to able-bodied people at the time anyway. I felt sorry for him when he got all this negative publicity because he was only doing a sport his dad was involved with and he was only doing it for
fun. Maybe he shouldn't have taken the prize money but it probably wasn't very much.

Between them Chas and Dan came up with a training programme which instilled a bit of discipline into what I was doing. But even at that early age it was clear I had a bit of a gift. Sometimes I feel like I was put on this earth to race. I had naturally fast hand speed, I was light, and I had a good technique. I learned my own style and developed it very quickly. When I teach youngsters now, I obviously teach them the basics but I emphasise that they have to find and develop their own style that will work for them. You wouldn't expect Paula Radcliffe to run like Michael Johnson. There is a certain basic level of technique required for sprinting and long-distance running but they both have their own natural, distinctive style. It's just the same in wheelchair racing and it's something I don't believe you can teach.

Although some coaches I have worked with have tried to change my style, it's pretty much the same now as it was when I started. I generate the power from my shoulders. That's then passed down through the triceps, through the forearms, through the wrists into the push rims, which move my wheels. I also use a lot of my core strength, and the muscles in my chest. But it's not all about power. If it was then lighter athletes like my Swiss rival Marcel Hug would not be anywhere near the top. I could lift double the weights he can in the gym. But he's still got great speed in the chair.

It's all down to how your hands connect with the push rims. You need to be as efficient and fluent as possible. You want to be flowing and hit that push rim at the right time. You want a smooth rhythm and I try my best not to waste energy when I race. The jerkier you are the less efficient you are. You need to glide along the track. It's exactly like watching Mo Farah run, he seems to glide along on his toes. It doesn't look like he's expending any effort.

The pushing technique is not easy to master because you have to hit the wheel rims with such speed. It takes a lot of practice to master. As my arms move downward I half-clench my fists but leave my thumbs sticking out. My knuckles make contact with the push rim first, a fraction of a second before the thumb hits it, driving it down to the bottom of the push. I then flick off before lifting my arms and doing it all again. Some people might be more thumb, others are more knuckle. I am actually different on each hand – that's why if you study me closely you will see I use more thumb on my left hand than my right. It might be because my back is slightly crooked and so leads to me favouring one arm over the other. It's the tiniest of margins but when you are racing it can make a big difference.

Even from an early age I wanted to win everything, regardless of the distance. Whether it was 100m or 5,000m, I wanted to beat everyone. I don't think there was anyone else in my age group who could do the range of distances that I have always done. A lot of the strength came from walking around on callipers and I have always had big
biceps and triceps and enormous hands. So I am
thankful
my mum and dad wanted me to walk around as a kid, instead of using a wheelchair. It made me much stronger. I didn't lift any weights until I was eighteen. I didn't know you had to. All my strength came through pushing my chair.

Maybe it was the strength but I always felt the training came easy – it was just a bit of fun. There were probably a few times when, as a teenager, I didn't want to go because I wanted to be out with my mates. But I didn't take it too seriously. I was just lucky I won so many races. By the time I was thirteen I was already racing with the Great Britain seniors. To race grown men and beat them was an amazing feeling. With Chas and Dan's guidance I got stronger and stronger and really started to develop as an athlete. And it was thanks to them that I got to my first Paralympics in Atlanta. They were a huge part of my early years.

Back in those days the chairs I raced in were nothing like the ones I have specially made for me now. My first one was paid for with a grant from Sutton Council. I
immediately
felt faster and loved it. I felt like a wheelchair racer. Although I have to admit it would look weird now up against the modern, streamlined machines we use today. It had four chunky wheels – three-wheelers were still quite a new thing back then. It looked a bit like a hospital trolley bed and it took a bit of getting used to.

We had a little path along the side of the house, so when I first got it I used to go up and down this path for hours on end. I really came to love it and I used it for quite a long
time. It was made by a company called Bromakin, which was founded by the 1988 gold-medal-winning Paralympian Peter Carruthers. His is one of those amazing, inspiring stories that are so commonplace in disability sport.

He was working as a plumber when he was badly injured in a car crash and left needing to use a wheelchair. His desire to race and compete led him to adapt his own chair and to develop a whole range of modern racing machines. I wish I still had that first chair but I think I left it at the track for someone else to use. When you are younger you don't value old things, you always want the latest bit of kit on the market. For me it was a bit like moving on to a new car. I never looked back.

With Chas and Dan overseeing my training I gradually increased the number of races I took part in. They were all over the country and my parents used to give up so much of their time and money to make sure I could compete. At first it was my mum who used to ferry me around all over the place because my dad hadn't passed his driving test. Then he got his licence and for the next six or seven years he gave up much of his life to help me compete and train. He used to leave home for work at 6 a.m., come back twelve hours later and then take me out to training. He would never eat, he would just take me straight to Tooting Bec. It was an amazing sacrifice, day after day. Then he was forking out for all the races around the country. I was extremely
fortunate
that my mum and dad had two full-time jobs so we were OK, but they were hardly rolling in it and paying for
their son's racing ambitions must have caused quite a hefty dent in the family bank account. Apart from the grant for the chair there were no sponsors or charities to pay for the petrol or the entry fees.

But my parents just wanted me to do well and saw that it was giving their son a focus and a sense of normality. So for my old man, if that meant loading up the red Ford Escort and heading off on the motorway for hours on end then so be it. There were so many race meetings back when I was a junior. And it was surprisingly competitive, with athletes in a whole range of classes. Nowadays when you go to them you are lucky to get a couple of athletes in each class. But Stoke Mandeville was always my favourite. I started going there from the age of nine or ten. It was here that the Paralympic movement started and where the first Games, inspired by Professor Sir Ludwig Guttmann, were held back in 1948. Everywhere you look there's a reminder of the place's heritage. You can't help but be moved and inspired. It just has an aura about it, a sense of history, and anyone who goes there immediately understands its significance. During training camps it was a who's who of Paralympic sport. But the person who always made me feel most at ease was also the most successful wheelchair athlete of her
generation
. Tanni Grey-Thompson was one of my earliest heroines and to meet her as a young athlete starting out was such a privilege. Because she is so down to earth and approachable it's easy to forget she has achieved so much as an athlete, but from the very first day we met at Stoke Mandeville she
always backed me. She would watch how I trained and give me little tips and she was always checking I was OK. To have people like Tanni telling you that you had great talent gave the newcomers like me great confidence. It really helped keep me motivated. In those days there wasn't a nice hotel where athletes could stay – we were all accommodated in giant dormitories where twenty or thirty people could sleep. Despite that I always liked going – even though the track in those early days was bumpy. You didn't get looked at as odd or different. It was the British home of Paralympic sport. Rubbing shoulders with the best in the country from other sports such as basketball, swimming, archery, table tennis and shooting made you feel part of a very exclusive club. To me it felt like home. And it reaffirmed that this was where I wanted to be. At that stage the only event that mattered to me was the London Marathon. I became slightly obsessed by it. By the time I was thirteen I had mastered the mini version, winning it comfortably. Now I wanted to test myself with the full distance. That was always my dream, my FA Cup Final at Wembley. At least, it was until the summer of 1992. That's when I got the Paralympic bug.