The Paralympics get underway today and Telegraph Sport brings you 10 athletes to keep an eye on in Tokyo
ParalympicsGB will have the highest ever percentage of female athletes competing at a Summer Games and a number of them are genuine medal contenders.
But there are many other athletes worthy of your attention in Tokyo and Telegraph Sport has the lowdown on the ones to look out for.
Amy Conroy
Wheelchair basketball
Conroy has been a key playmaker in the British women’s wheelchair basketball team, which narrowly lost out on a medal in Rio, but which is now a rising powerhouse in the sport. The British team produced its best ever performance at the Paralympics in Rio, reaching the semi-finals, where they were defeated by the USA.
The team lost the bronze medal play-off match to the Netherlands, but bounced back with silver at the 2018 World Championships. Conroy, now 28, and vastly more experienced, steps up for her third Games, and will be influential in the team’s success.
Key date: Sep 4 (final)
Maisie Summers-Newton
Para-swimming
Just 19, Summers-Newton is already a world, European champion and world record holder. Inspired by the London 2012 Games, Summers-Newton has now beaten one of the leading lights in London, team-mate Ellie Simmonds.
Summers-Newton made her GB debut at the 2018 European Championships capturing gold in the SM6 200m individual medley with Simmonds, who won the event at the London and Rio Paralympics, in fourth. Summers-Newton described it as “a bit surreal” beating her idol. In 2019, she took 26-year-old Simmonds’ world title in the 200m individual medley.
Key date: Aug 26 (SM6 200m individual medley final)
Will Bayley
Para-table tennis
An anterior cruciate ligament injury as a performer on Strictly Come Dancing appeared to have put paid to livewire Bayley’s hopes of defending the gold medal the 33-year-old won in Rio. But the 12-month delay forced by the coronavirus pandemic has allowed Bayley – born with arthrogryposis which which affects all four of his limbs, and who overcame cancer at the age of seven – the time to recover, tap into his fighting instincts, and find his form to defend his crown in Tokyo.
Key date: Aug 29 (final)
Gordon Reid
Wheelchair tennis
Reid, 29, the Rio 2016 Paralympic singles gold medalist who also won a silver medal in the doubles event with partner Alfie Hewett, whom he beat in the singles final, begins these Games in a powerful position. Reid has been kept in fine form as the doubles pair completed a non-calendar year Grand Slam, winning all four majors in a row from the 2020 US Open to the 2021 Wimbledon Championships.
Key date: Sep 2 (singles final)
David Weir
Para-athletics
Six-time gold medallist in London and Beijing, Weir, now 42, makes a bid for gold again after leaving Rio in 2016 without a medal, having gone there as defending champion in four events, three on the track, and the marathon.
With his Paralympic Games career having begun as a 17-year-old in Atlanta in 1996, Weir’s journey to the East as a wheelchair racer has rediscovered his form in track racing – including a new personal best in the 1500m this season.
Key date: Aug 31 (1,500m final)
Jaco van Gass
Para-cycling
Jaco van Gass will compete in five races on the track and the road, the 34-year-old having sought the toughest trials in life. Wounded while serving in the Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan in 2009 when he was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, he has gone on to trek the North Pole with Prince Harry, won gold at the Invictus Games, compete in marathons, and become a downhill skier. Van Gass narrowly missed out on selection for Rio but travels to Tokyo as a triple world champion on the track.
Key date: Aug 28 (mixed team sprint)
Libby Clegg
Para-athletics
A double gold medal winner in Rio with guide Chris Clarke in the T11 100m and 200m, Clegg took time away from the sport before becoming a mother in 2019, before her personality and athleticism shone in her appearances on the ITV show Dancing On Ice last year, where she and partner Mark Hanretty finished third.
Tokyo will be a family affair for Clegg, whose younger brother Stephen competes at the acquatic centre while partner Dan Powell competes in judo for GB, just as brother Marc and father Terry did before him.
Key date: Sep 4 (200m final)
Amy Truesdale
Para-taekwondo
Pioneering Truesdale has been a leading figure in para-taekwondo and has won two world titles, in 2014 and 2017. Truesdale, 32, was born without a left hand or forearm and competes in a sport which makes its Paralympic debut in Tokyo.
In spite of her last world title victory in 2017, Truesdale will start as one of the clear favourites in the women’s +58kg category, having used losses in 2018 as a learning tool. “I’m trying to use 2018 as motivation to increase my preparations for these Games,” she says, thrilled that the sport has reached the Games.
Key date: Sep 4
Mami Sato
Para-triathlon
She may not win a medal but will be a huge star in Japan because she gave the speech in the IOC session in 2013 when Tokyo won the games. She started the presentation by talking about how sport changed her life and is widely credited for the games ending up in Tokyo. Sato was a survivor of the earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan and triggered a nuclear disaster in 2011.
Key dates: Aug 28-29
Markus Rehm
Para-athletics
Germany’s long jumper Rehm, known as ‘The Blade Jumper’, is a single leg amputee whose long-jump record stands at 8.62m, set at the 2021 World Para Athletics European Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The jump was good enough to have won the athlete a gold medal at every Olympic games up to Barcelona 1992. Rehm’s right leg was amputated below the knee after a wake-boarding accident.
Key date: Sep 1