SAM Ingram is proud to be a Paralympian, but it is not just about the medals he has won. The judo player, who is visually impaired, tells of how his silver-winning performance at London 2012 inspired a 45-year-old man who had lost his sight in recent years.

“He came up to me during a training session and told me how used to do judo as kid and had been unemployed since he lost his sight,” Ingram said.

“After the London Paralympics, he went to his local judo club, made loads of friends, got more confidence and went back to work. His life changed.

“When you hear stories like that, you think wow, you can actually make difference to some people’s lives. That does make you proud to be a Paralympian and an athlete.”

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Ingram is one of 33 Scottish athletes and players who will compete for a medal at the Paralympics in Rio, in sports ranging from cycling and athletics to swimming and powerlifting. It is the biggest team from north of the border in 20 years.

The Games, which begin with the opening ceremony on Wednesday, have the hard task of following the huge success of the London Paralympics, which had the highest number of athletes competing and sold a record 2.7million tickets. It made household names of British athletes such as wheelchair racer David Weir, sprinters Libby Clegg and Jonnie Peacock, and swimmer Ellie Simmonds.

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By contrast in the run-up to Rio there have been concerns over budget shortfalls and poor ticket sales.

But Gavin Macleod, chief executive of governing body Scottish Disability Sport (SDS), said he believed Rio would still be a huge success.

“It was all doom and gloom going into the Olympics, with fears over Zika virus and terrorism and everything else,” he said. “But it passed over to be a hugely successful Games.

“I am quietly confident it will be exactly the same for the Paralympics – the funding issues seem to be partially resolved and ticket sales are starting to increase.

“I think it will be a great showcase and performances will go through the roof – I hope Scottish athletes will contribute to that.”

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Boccia players Jamie (far left) and Scott (far right) McCowan with their mum Linda and dad Gary. All four will compete at the Paralympic Games in Rio. Picture: Jamie Simpson/Herald & Times

Boccia players Jamie (left) and Scott (right) McCowan will compete at the Paralympic Games in Rio. Picture: Jamie Simpson/Herald & Times

Macleod said London 2012 had been a “milestone” in terms of demonstrating the abilities of disabled athletes, but the Games had the potential to have a wider impact.

“It dispels some of myths around disability – these are high performance athletes and it just shows what can be achieved,” he said.

“When we deliver training out there to coaches, volunteers and teachers the message we give is to not look at the disability, but to look at the ability of the individual.

“If we could get that message across society wider than just in sport then that would make a real difference.”

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The London Paralympics changed the life of Scot Martin Dougan. He was not a competitor, but was selected as one of the presenters for Channel 4’s groundbreaking coverage, which billed the Paralympians as Superhumans for the first time.

Dougan, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, has since carved out a successful television career as a presenter for CBBC Newsround and will be going to Rio to cover the Paralympics for the BBC.

He said London 2012 had “raised the bar” in showcasing disability sport.

“What makes the Paralympics different from the Olympics is you have got athletes who are just as good athletically in terms of their ability in sport as anyone else,” he said. “But you can also tell stories about how people have overcome life struggles to get where they are.

“I think that is why it changed – people watching really felt something for the athletes, not just from a sporting point of view but from a personal point of view as well. Hopefully that can happen again.”

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Maria Lyle, a sprinter from Dunbar, is one of the youngest members of the team. The 16-year-old, who has cerebral palsy, will compete in 100m, 200m and also 4x100m relay races.

Speaking from the preparation camp in Belo Horizonte, where she arrived last week, she said: “I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I have been enjoying myself.

“It is a great team environment and everyone has been getting on well. We have got great facilities which means training is going well and I’m looking forward for the Games to start.”

Lyle, who set a world record on her international debut in 2014, said she had been inspired by watching the London 2012 Paralympics.

“I had been doing disability sport before that and I had been running, but I was too young to be selected for London. But just watching it then, I said right I want to try and aim for Rio.

“Now being on the same team as others who have been at London is really cool.”

She added: “After London 2012 I think the participation of disabled people in sport has increased, there is more coverage.

“I think especially other countries have been looking at what British people do and how it is so big for us.”

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Unfortunately Lyle will miss out on attending Wednesday’s opening ceremony as she will still be in the preparation camp, but she hopes to attend the closing ceremony.

She said: “It would be great to get a medal – I have been working for this for so long. Nothing is guaranteed, but if I do my best, then my best is all I can do and if I get a medal, I get a medal.

“If I don’t, as long as I know I have done alright it will be fine.”

Nathan Macqueen, 25, who is originally from Dumfries, will be competing at his first Paralympics in archery. He played professional rugby as a teenager, but at the age of 17 was involved in a horrific motorbike accident which left him paralysed from the waist down.

He initially started playing wheelchair basketball and then took up powerlifting – but after being injured turned his sporting talents to archery instead.

Speaking from Belo Horizonte he said: “When I first started archery it was aiming for the ‘Road to Rio’, but for a while I thought this might not actually be possible.

“It is only in the last six to eight months that it has really come true, I have been shooting well enough and things have come together.”

He believes the Paralympics could help change attitudes towards disability.

“People tend to put people with disabilities in a box,” he said. “I hate that word disabled, it should be differently-abled. We can do the same as everyone else, we just have our own ways of doing it. I think a Paralympics opens everyone’s eyes to what we can actually do.”

Macqueen said that while he would love to get a medal, his main aim was to enjoy himself and use the experience for future Paralympics, including Tokyo in 2020.

“I am only 25, and I plan on shooting for a few Paralympics at least,” he said. “I am just going to soak this up and use it as a stepping stone for Tokyo.

“As long as I know I have done my best, I will be happy.”

Sport, he said, had been an important part of his rehabilitation programme following his accident.

“I think if it wasn’t for sport I wouldn’t be the Nathan I am now – it is really important to me,” he said.

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Judo player Sam Ingram, who lives in Edinburgh, is competing in his third consecutive Paralympics. The 31-year-old won bronze in Beijing and silver in London. He said he was hoping for gold in Rio but added: “It is just one of those things where I have to aim for the medal matches and see what happens.”

Ingram, also in the Belo Horizonte training camp, said each Games had a very different atmosphere.

“In London you couldn’t turn your head without seeing a British flag. In China was a bit corporate – that was their aim to show the world they were in the new world completely and they did that fantastically.

“I think Rio is going to be a different environment altogether, and as far as facilities and what we need as athletes it has been fantastic so far.”

He described the Paralympics as the “flagship” of the disability movement.

“It is the one element that is widely publicised and people with disabilities are praised for their achievements themselves,” he said. “There is definitely more awareness and better respect of disability compared to now from Beijing. I think London probably had a big part to play in that.”

Ingram said he believed issues around ticket sales and funding problems in the run-up to Rio would be resolved. “There have been a million tickets sold, which is an astronomical amount of people,” he said. “And on the news one guy was talking about how Brazilians like to do the things the day before.

“I think it is going to be a success, but even if there is no-one in the stadiums, the sport still goes on, the rest of the world will see it and the Paralympic movement goes on.

“Some of the people taking part in the Paralympics have had to deal with a lot bigger things than have someone not watch them in a tournament.”

Alison Patrick, from Dunfermline, will be taking part in the first-ever triathalon competition at a Paralympics. The 28-year-old, who is visually impaired, will travel to Rio on Tuesday.

Her gruelling competition includes a 750 metre swim, a 20km cycle ride and a 5km run with guide Hazel Smith, who is also Scottish.

She said: “It is pretty cool to be part of something new, triathalon itself is such an emerging sport that to be part of it when it is the first ever time at the Paralympics is really exciting.”

Patrick was involved in running from a young age, in both athletics and cross country, and including representing Scotland as an ‘able-bodied’ runner in the World Mountain Trophy in 2006.

After injury stopped her pursuing her running career, she decided to join a triathalon club mainly for the social element and to enjoy sport again.

She said it had been a “whirlwind” journey since taking up paratriathalon in 2014 to get to Rio.

“I can’t wait to go out now and be involved in the whole team atmosphere,” she said. “In the past, even my own attitude towards disability sport was there is not many people I am competing against and the level of sport wasn’t there.

“But it has moved on so much and London was a big part of making it about the fact these are amazing athletes.

“Rather than the attitude of ‘isn’t it great she is partially-sighted and she can run’, people are now saying ‘wow she is really fast and I can’t do that’.”

She added: “I hope that everything being well I will get a medal – though I try not to think about it as I am a pessimist. But it would be amazing and would show all the work can pay off if you just try as hard as you can.”