THE 49-strong Paralympic athletics squad announced yesterday included two Scots: visually impaired double European sprint champion Libby Clegg and amputee Fiona Reid who seems fated to be tagged Scotland's "bladerunner".
Fifty days out from the Paralympic opening ceremony, this completes the UK team and brings the total to 301 competitors, including tandem riders, guide runners, and goalkeepers, all of whom are sighted. Of that, 26 are Scots, including two sighted tandem riders.
This compares with 51 Scots among 542 competitors in the Olympic team.
"Our target was seven percent of the team total," said Gavin Macleod, chief executive of Scottish Disability Sport, "but with the two pilots, we are over nine percent."
Yet while we are engulfed daily by the media machine promoting the virtues of Britain's Olympic athletes and their prospects, details of Paralympians remain sketchy, despite their achievements standing very favourable comparison. So here we celebrate some of the Scottish Paralympians who have gained selection for their home Games.
Like Broxburn swimmer James Anderson OBE, one of five Scots in the swimming team. He has competed in more Games than legendary oarsman Sir Steve Redgrave who won five successive Olympic titles. "Jim The Swim" has a medal haul which leaves Redgrave in his wake – six titles to Redgrave's five. He has also won 18 IPC World Championship medals (nine gold), and 21 European championship medals (12 gold).
Yet Anderson, who has acute cerebral palsy, was more interested in writing as a schoolboy, winning prizes for short stories and poetry. Even at 18 his confidence in the water was so low that he wore a rubber ring. Now, at 49, he is heading for his sixth Paralympics, having competed in every edition since 1992. He won four golds in Athens in 2004 and his two bronzes and two silvers in Beijing brought his Paralympic medal haul to 17.
Some parallel trends are evident. Scottish Paralympic swimming has outperformed track and field as has happened in mainstream sport where, for the first time since 1956, there is no Scottish male athlete.
Ditto in the Paralympic athletics squad, yet the one male Scot who featured in the Beijing squad is selected again. Confused?
Neil Fachie, from Aberdeen, went to Beijing as a track sprinter, but is now selected as a cyclist – one of the most dramatic successes of the Talent Transfer programme. He won World Championship gold in 2009 and 2011 with different pilots, and took world silver this year in the kilometre with pilot Barney Storey.
Fachie and fellow sprinter Clegg achieved in Beijing what no able-bodied Scottish sprinter, male or female, had done in over a decade – represent Britain at the Olympics in an individual sprint event. The last Scot to do so was Fife's Ian Mackie, a 100m semi-finalist in 1996.
Clegg, who won 100m silver in Beijing, is in the form of her life after last year's 100m victory at the IPC World Championships in New Zealand, and 100m and 200m gold at the visually impaired World Championships in Turkey. Last month, the 22-year-old from Newcastleton in the Borders did the same double at the IPC European Championships in the Netherlands.
She suffers from Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy, which also affects her two brothers, one of whom is also in the GB team. James is a swimmer, and five years ago his sight impairment led to an accident in which part of their home was badly damaged by fire.
Reid is also heading for her second Paralympics. New Zealand-born, she won a medal for Canada in Beijing, and works with Sport Wales, but her allegiance lies with Scotland. Scottishathletics confirmed yesterday that she has already been registered and declared eligible on the strength of her father, Philip, who is from Sandyhills in Glasgow.
Her dream is to compete in 2014. The only down side is that her best event, the long jump, in which she is world record holder in her classification, was rejected for the Glasgow programme by the IPC.
Reid lost part of her right leg in a motorboat accident and took up track and field in her late teens. After Beijing she served a one-year ban to switch allegiance to the UK where she has been trained by Dan Pfaff, mentor of Canada's 1996 Olympic 100m champion and world record-breaker, Donovan Bailey.
There are several other unsung multiple Paralympians. Tandem cyclist Aileen McGlynn has three golds and a silver from her two Paralympic appearances – one gold less than Sir Chris Hoy has from three.
And Beijing Paralympian Gordon Reid, from Helensburgh, has been selected again in wheelchair tennis. His late uncle, The Herald's much-loved golf correspondent Douglas Lowe, would have been fair proud.
Craig Rodgie is the first learning difficulty Olympian since that classification was turfed out after the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney, when members of the Spanish basketball team were found to be intellectually normal.
Four of the GB football team are Scots – there is no hiatus with the SFA, despite well-publicised opposition to the GB Olympic team. Indeed, the Paralympic captain is a Scot – Jon Paterson, who completes a unique treble, having also captained his country at World and European level.
Fachie and McGlynn are among five Scots in the cycling squad. This includes pilots Fiona Duncan and Craig Maclean. Grantown's Maclean won World and Commonwealth gold in mainstream cycling as well as Olympic silver 12 years ago. Now the goal is Paralympic gold.
It is interesting that UK Sport has bankrolled British Paralympic sport to the tune of £49m during the past four years. Mainstream sport has received £262m. The GB Paralympic team is more than half the size of the Olympic one. Why the disparity? Perish the thought that prejudice is at work.
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