Thought our Olympian women were heroic? Just read the stories of our Paralympians going for gold

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When the Paralympic Games begin in Tokyo next week, Great Britain will take its highest-ever proportion of female athletes, with 100 women among the 227 competitors representing our nation on the world stage.

Every one of them has overcome adversity, smashing barriers — and world records — on their journey to compete for their country.

Here, six of these elite sportswomen and their ever-supportive families tell Libby Galvin their stories of the grit and determination it has taken to reach this pinnacle of sporting success. Event times are shown in BST. 

After you’ve broken your neck, what’s there to be scared of? 

Wheelchair rugby player Kylie Grimes, 33, is from Farnham, Surrey. Her first event will be pool phase Group B, Great Britain v Canada, on August 25 at 9.30am.

As a girl, Kylie dreamed of becoming an Olympic showjumper. In 2006, at the age of 18, that dream changed when she hit her head diving into a friend’s swimming pool and became paralysed below the chest.

‘I didn’t really have any major struggles after the accident, I just wanted to get on with life,’ she says. 

‘When I found wheelchair rugby, it became quite easy to get stuck in and keep working because you’re around like-minded people who have had accidents as well.’

The sport is so full-on it was once known as ‘murder ball’. ‘That’s the bit that I love about it more than anything,’ says Kylie. 

‘It’s brutal, it’s fast-paced, it’s full contact.’ She’s more than a match for others in the mixed sport, often piling into the wheelchairs of men twice her size. She adds: ‘Once you’ve broken your neck, what’s there to be scared of?’

Tell me that I can’t do it and I’ll prove you wrong

Ellie Challis, 17, from Clacton, Essex, lives with her father Paul, 57, in Manchester. Her first race will be the women’s 50m backstroke S3 heat on August 29 at 1am.

Ellie is no stranger to defying expectations. When the Paralympic hopeful was just 16 months old, her parents wept at her bedside as doctors told them to say goodbye to their little girl as meningitis and sepsis took hold.

‘I felt sick, horrible, the worst. I thought, please take me instead — let her be OK,’ says father Paul. ‘Her legs turned completely black . . . She actually died for two minutes. Her heart stopped.’

But against all odds Ellie — who had been given just a 5 per cent chance of survival — pulled through. To save her, surgeons had to amputate her forearms and her lower legs.

Paul adds: ‘I remember when she attempted the stairs for the first time when she was about one year old . . . It must have taken her an hour to climb the whole staircase. But she kept going and she did it.’

In 2017, Ellie broke the British SB2 50m breaststroke record that had stood since 1992. 

‘I want to do things everyone says I can’t, just to prove them wrong,’ she says. 

‘Everyone assumes you can’t do a lot until they actually meet you.’ A gold medal, surely, must be next.

I see my accident as a gift 

Track-and-field athlete Stefanie Reid MBE, 36, lives in Loughborough, Leicestershire, with her husband, Canadian Paralympian Brent Lakatos, 41. She is competing in the women’s long jump T64 final on August 28 at 2.41am.

Beautiful, bright at school and talented on the sports field, 15-year-old Stefanie Reid planned to pursue a professional rugby career when a terrifying accident on a lake with friends in Toronto, Canada, changed her life.

‘We had spent the afternoon tubing, clinging to a rubber ring tied to a motorboat,’ she says. ‘I’d been flung off and was waiting for the boat to come back around.

‘But when I turned back I realised the driver — my best friend’s brother — hadn’t seen me.

‘He was coming way too fast. I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to swim away from the massive propellers. I thought I could dive down and clear them but I had a lifejacket on, so I didn’t get down very far.’

When she surfaced, she thought she had been lucky — but back on the boat, she suddenly realised why her friends looked so horrified.

Stefanie had been hit by the propellers across her back and legs. ‘I could reach right inside my body. I thought I’d been cut in half,’ she says.

At hospital, the only way the surgeon could stop the bleeding was to amputate her foot. ‘I was devastated. Sport was my dream. It was what I lived for.’

But not one to be cowed by adversity, she switched her focus to academia and got a scholarship to study biochemistry at university in Canada.

It was there that she found athletics — going on to compete at the World Championships three years later, and in 2008 winning a bronze medal in the 200m for Canada at the Beijing Paralympics.

In 2010, she joined the ParalympicsGB team (her parents are both British, although she grew up in Canada) and won silver medals in the long jump at London and Rio.

Now, she is set to succeed at Tokyo 2020 — with her husband, fellow Paralympian and seven-time medallist Brent Lakatos, cheering her on all the way. No matter the result, she is thankful.

‘The accident changed who I was as a person. It changed my values and my goals in life,’ Stef says. ‘That has been an incredible gift and I am grateful.’

Real strength is being proud of yourself

Hollie Arnold MBE, 27, lives in Loughborough, Leicestershire, but is originally from Grimsby, where her parents Graham, 58, a joiner, and Jill, 56, still live. She is competing in the women’s javelin throw F46 final on September 3 at 11.28am.

‘Strong doesn’t necessarily mean big and strong. It means powerful. It means you can stand tall and you’re proud of yourself.’ 

These are the words of Hollie Arnold, who won gold in the javelin at Rio’s Games and is tipped for the same success in Tokyo. They are the sort of words her parents might have used to comfort their daughter, born without a right forearm, when she faced bullies at school.

‘She is a tough cookie,’ says Jill. ‘I always told her to be proud of who she is. She now says, ‘I hope those people who said nasty things to me look at where I am now and realise what I have achieved.’ ‘

Despite having competed for Britain since 2008, she is now recognised more for appearing on I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! last year. ‘She still thinks of herself as a nobody,’ Jill adds.

‘She is very taken aback when people recognise her. She is very humble.’

I knew I’d one day hold my own medal  

Dressage rider Natasha Baker MBE, 31, lives with her fiance, Marc Jaconelli, 29, who owns a car-detailing business, in Uxbridge, West London, near her parents Phil, 62, and Lorraine, 60. Her first event will be the individual test grade III final on August 27 at 11.22am.

Coming from a horsey family, Natasha was destined to ride. But at 14 months old, the disorder transverse myelitis left her with permanent nerve damage, loss of balance and sensation, and severe weakness in her legs.

‘If she was sitting here and you said to her, ‘Any regrets?’ she would say, ‘I would not be here today if it had not happened to me,’ ‘ says her father, Phil.

Success is a family business: her mother, Lorraine, is her international groom and is in Tokyo with her, while Phil, a former engineer, works at the yard full-time.

‘Natasha used to go to the Riding for the Disabled Association,’ says Phil. 

‘One day Lee Pearson [that’s Sir Lee Pearson, winner of 11 Paralympic equestrian gold medals] came to the yard and said to Natasha, ‘Would you like to hold my medal?’ She said, ‘No thanks, I will hold my own one day.’ Now they’re sitting together on the plane.’

At London 2012, Natasha won two golds, and at Rio she claimed a hat-trick. This year, she is going for gold again. Phil describes being with his wife and crying with pride at their daughter’s achievements: ‘I get too emotional,’ he says.

Win or lose, there’s lots to look forward to when Team Baker reunite after the competition.

‘We’ve got a wedding to plan for March,’ says Natasha’s fiance, Marc. ‘She’s almost more excited to come back and do that.’

Competing at 16 transformed my view of my body 

Triathlete Claire Cashmore MBE, 33, lives in Loughborough, Leicestershire, with her partner, fellow Paralympian Dave Ellis, 35. 

She is competing in the women’s PTS5 final on August 29 at 12.31am.

Next week, Claire will compete as a Paralympic triathlete for the first time — but it’s far from her first Games. She has made it to the podium as a swimmer in every competition since 2004.

As a youngster, born without her left forearm, Claire hated the water but her parents insisted she learn to swim. It was at the Athens Paralympics, aged just 16, where she won two bronze medals, that her attitude to her body changed.

‘It’s hard to put into words how incredible it was. I’d never been surrounded by so many people with so many different disabilities that were so happy and so confident. Before, I was super self-conscious.’

Now, Claire is going for gold as a triathlete, adding cycling and running to her repertoire. 

She has even written a children’s book, Splash, about a girl conquering her fear of water.

Additional reporting: Giulia Crouch, Stephanie Condron and Mark Branagan