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Paralympic swimming champion Brock Whiston hopes the Prime Minister will heed British athletes’ emphatic call to ensure disabled children have equal access to sport.
On the day the triumphant team returned home from Paris with 124 medals – 49 gold, 44 silver and 31 bronze – ParalympicsGB posted an open letter to Sir Keir Starmer, urging him to “act now” and establish a “clear plan from across Government with concrete steps for change”.
Whiston, who stormed to women’s SM8 200m individual medley gold, will soon return to her job as a teaching assistant for children with special needs and as a communicator for the deaf, and also works as a swimming instructor.
Speaking at St Pancras station, freshly disembarked from the Eurostar, she said: “Some of the children I work with have physical impairments and parents come up to me at school and they’re like, ‘So you can do it!’.
“I’m like, yeah, it just might not be the direct route, but we’ll get there in the end, whether it means we take a couple of steps backwards to go forwards, but we will get there eventually.
“Definitely, for me, it’s something that needs to change and it will change, because we’ll make sure it does.
“We will never be equal, because you can’t possibly be equal, but you should always get the same opportunities.
“Sometimes we might need extra support, but that’s OK. Everyone needs to be able to achieve their full potential, no matter what it takes, and there’s millions of children out there that have that potential.
“They just haven’t been reached yet.”
A ParalympicsGB study found only one in four disabled children regularly took part in school sport.
The open letter read: “As Paralympians, and as disabled people, we are more determined than ever to use this platform to do all we can to prevent the next generation of children being left on the sidelines in the birthplace of the Paralympic movement.
“There are 1.5 million disabled children – 15 per cent of the school population – and it is shocking that such a large number of young people do not have the chance to participate in sport and develop and grow as a result.
“We are heartened by your support for the Equal Play campaign and we are asking you to act now to ensure every child has the same access to PE at school. Your Government has a unique opportunity to shift the dial so that by the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games, no disabled child faces this discrimination.”
The letter calls for better training and tools for teachers, more emphasis on PE in the curriculum and a push to increase the number of disabled people entering the teaching profession.
Whiston’s tearful post-race interview after finishing runner-up in the women’s 100m SB8 breaststroke was one of the most memorable of the Games.
The Paralympic debutant was utterly crushed not to win that final, even apologising for her performance.
But the vulnerable, viral moment further endeared her to the British public, who flooded Whiston with encouragement on social media before she bounced back to claim her first Paralympic title.
The 27-year-old’s success in the pool contributed to an overall 32 medals for Britain’s swimmers, 18 of them gold.
Whiston’s team-mate Alice Tai claimed five medals in the pool, including two Paralympic titles.
Tai, who could easily recall her own experiences of feeling excluded in school PE, said: “I think if you’re excluded it can have a massive impact.
“I think the Paralympics proves that sport is accessible and it just takes people to have open minds, listen to people with disabilities, advocate for us, and keep everything going after the Paralympics.
“There was a lot of talk about how this has broken down stigmas around disability and Paris is more accessible now, but it’s still an ongoing journey.
“It’s not just a two-week thing. People need to look at their own lives and see how they can make things around them more accessible for everyone.
“I think that was a really important message and the way the crowd at the closing ceremony reacted really gave me hope that the Paralympic movement is having more and more of an impact every time.”
