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GREY-THOMPSON>>> Paralympic sport has defined my whole life. I started doing sport at 7.
My parents thought it was important for me to be fit and healthy and then through school,
I started entering competitions. I went to Stoke Mandeville for the first time
in 1982 and for me to go there was amazing. To be in the dorms as a 12 year old is the
most exciting thing ever - not so much when you get older ñ but it was a great experience
being there in a junior competition. From then, thatís when I thought about the Paralympics.
I remember watching the 1984 Olympics with the likes of Seb Coe and Ed Moses and thinking
ëThat is what I want to do!í Four years after that in 1988 was my first Paralympic
Games that I competed at. I never thought that my Paralympic career would ever lead
to the House of Lords, but everything that I learnt, that I did, has contributed to who
I am.
DICKENSON>>> Thinking back to your first time at Stoke Mandeville, did you ever think you
could be a Paralympian?
GREY-THOMPSON>>> I knew at 12 that I wanted to be a Paralympic champion, but I wasnít
entirely sure that I could, because although I was good at athletics, I wasnít the best.
The best girl in Britain went to my school, which was pretty miserable ñ I didnít win
much! But I remember beating her in our last year together when I was 16, and at that point
I thought ëIf I can beat her, then who else can I beat?í and by that time I was in a
better club ñ a mainstream athletics club ñ I was training and every decision I made
was around me wanting to be an athlete, so I went to Loughborough University for sport
and it all started slotting into place. The big step for me was making Seoul in 1988.
Realistically I was probably one of the last members of the team to be selected ñ I was
right at the bottom of the list. That gave me good experience, being with the GB team.
We were all gathered at Stoke Mandeville before we went and seeing the whole team together
in their track suits, travelling as a team and also after the Games we came back to Stoke,
and that was really special. Stoke has been there for not just every step
of my life athletically, but I celebrated my 16th, 18th, 21st birthdays there, and most
of my wedding anniversaries. Stoke Mandeville is still central to most things we do in the
sport.
DICKENSON>>> Do enough people in the world know about this special place, Stoke Mandeville,
and in particular, the hospital?
GREY-THOMPSON>>> I donít think enough people do know about it. I think the naming of the
mascot Mandeville has been amazing. Thatís really helped people to understand. If you
look at Stoke Mandeville and the rehab movement, what Guttmann did there through the Second
World War ñ sport was an amazing tool. Itís hard to think that in the 40ís there wasnít
any disability sport, nobody knew anything about
it. He (Guttmann) created this movement and itís important to remember history, but also
to remember how far weíve come. In the 40ís and 50ís wheelchair racing wasnít invented
as a sport. Lots of doctors and nurses felt that paraplegics shouldnít do wheelchair
racing because it was taxing on the body. There are pictures of the early days of a
100 yards race with doctors and nurses being on the finish line in case the poor patients
have passed out! A rapid transition to the 80ís with marathon racing and all sorts of
other things and the sport developed quickly.
DICKENSON>>> You were an incredible athlete in that you won everything going. Is there
any one performance you look back on and think ëThat was my best everí?
GREY-THOMPSON>>> My best ever race was the 100m final in Athens. My 800m was unbelievably
bad. A split second decision ñ the wrong one ñ put me in a wrong position and just
everything went bad and everyone around me was saying ëIs it a Games too far?í and
thatís what should have been said. And to come back and win the 100 was, for me, the
best race Iíve ever done in my life and the one Iím happiest with, relieved with. In
my whole career I probably lost more races that I won.
DICKENSON>>> If you could have said something to Guttmann, what would it be?
GREY-THOMPSON>>>If I could say anything to Sir Ludwig, it would be ëThank youí because
at the time he was creating the disability sports movement there was so little value
around disabled people. Before he did his rehab work at Stoke, if you broke your back
or neck, you were left in hospital to die. It was that simple. You might have gone home,
but you had no life expectancy, you werenít expected to contribute or do anything at all.
The stuff he did started to change the way that disable people were perceived and then
other people were able to build on that. But without him (and, in a bizarre way, the Second
World War) we wouldnít have had the kind of rights that disabled people now have.
When I was growing up, even at the age of 7 or 8, you didnít really see disabled people
out and about on the street. Education was segregated, and a lot of disabled people were
living in homes and they just werenít around. Sport helped to change that ñ sport plus
legislation brought disabled people out. The Paralympic movement has done so much to change
other peopleís view of disability and thatís been amazing. For me, years on in the House
of Lords, (Iím not sure anyone thought Iíd end up here) I didnít want to be locked away,
I wanted to be out and working and doing sport. Itís really important to keep fighting for
these things. I know a lot has been achieved but thereís still a lot that we have to do
to make sure disabled people arenít side-lined and ignored.
Sir Ludwig Guttmann has left an enormous legacy and the fact that we still have the stadium
at Stoke Mandeville regenerated, there are lots of young people coming though and itís
important to remember everything he did and the battles he fought and that he just didnít
give up. I would have loved to have met him. Iím sure he was stubborn and awkward and
never stopped, just kept going and going, because it was something that he believed
in and I think we can all learn from that. He would have been really proud to see the
work that he started ñ in London 2012 we will have an amazing Paralympic Games and
itís down to one person and everything that he did!
DICKENSON>>> Looking back to your very first Paralympic Games in Seoul, not a lot of people
with the team was incredible. But nobody really knew the termí Paralympicsí in Korea. It
was kind of ërent-a-crowdí! The same people came every day to watch and they supported
different countries every day! Even back home, we knew about it, but it wasnít
particularly important in the press or the media. There was a programme on the BBC about
6 weeks later which mostly talked about the Irish Boccia team, not about our performances.
It was exciting to be there, but we felt as if we were really at the start of something
that nobody really knew anything about.
DICKENSON>>> Was Barcelona in 1992 better in that respect?
GREY-THOMPSON>>> Barcelona was a massive step up (from Seoul in 1988) because the media
got behind it and so we had newspaper journalists out there, we had BBC coverage ñ one of my
races was shown on Grandstand! As an athlete, you kind of think ëIíve made it!í My mother
was really disappointed because I spat some water out on the track and she never forgave
me for that! But there was stuff in the papers every day and for me as an athlete going there
and winning, that was great. It felt that people started to know what the Paralympic
movement was about: it followed on from the Olympics and it was about sport and we felt
that people were bothered.
DICKENSON>>> You carried on winning from then on really but what about the USA in 1996?
GREY-THOMPSON>>> Atlanta was really weird as a Games. We expected it to be a step up
from Barcelona and if you look at the support that Amercian athletes had in terms of university
scholarships, road racing and disability rights legislation is amazing in the States.
But nobody really cared about the Paralympics. All the baseball matches that hadnít been
on during the Olympics got scheduled during the Paralympics and nobody really came to
watch. Although there was good media coverage, it was disappointing that there wasnít a
huge amount of interest in the Games ñ it felt like the Games had stalled a bit and
what should have been an amazing opportunity to push on just fell a bit flat. It didnít
help that the British Olympic team didnít have a great time, but for the British Paralympic
team it wasnít a huge amount of fun to be at.