7:28pm Friday 6th July 2007
By George Hamilton
One of the country's top paralympian athletes dropped in to encourage disabled children competing in the Oxfordshire Parallel Youth Games.
Basketball player Ade Adepitan signed autographs and posed for photos with 150 children at the games in Blackbird Leys Leisure Centre, Oxford, yesterday.
And the paralympic bronze medallist told the aspiring athletes: "I started off in competitions like this.
"This is where I learned my my skills to be a paralympic athlete.
"From small dreams big things can come."
Adepitan, 34, is probably best known for his wheelchair dancing, which was shown during breaks between programmes on the BBC.
The MBE holder's sporting achievements include a Bronze Medal at the Athens Paralympics 2004, and a Gold Medal at the Paralympic World Cup, in Manchester, in 2005.
He said: "The children are really excited about the event. You can hear all the excitement and cheers. They are having a great time."
Competitors from nine schools across Oxford enjoyed sports including five-a-side football, javelin, and the long jump. Pupils trained for six weeks for the event, and other activities included specialist disabled sports such as boccia- a form of bowling - and electric wheelchair slaloms.
Thomas Brain, seven, from Mabel Prichard School, in Littlemore, played in the football tournament.
He said: "It's great - I scored a goal. Me and my class are having fun."
Anthony Shirley, 14, a Year 10 sports leader for Iffley Mead School, in Iffley, helped younger pupils prepare for the games as well as competing in football, boccia and target kurling himself.
He said: "It's really good. The expressions on everybody's faces is good."
Yesterday's event was the second Oxfordshire Parallel Youth Games, which were acting as a warm-up for the Oxfordshire Youth Games, held at Radley College, near Abingdon, tomorrow.
Roger Cowdrey, chairman of Oxfordshire Sports Partnership, said: "These events are very much a celebration.
"A day like today helps the pupils' ability to compete with other people and mix with other people.
"It makes them realise just what they can achieve."
Another aim of the day was to encourage the pupils to pick activities that they can continue to enjoy throughout the year.
Last year's event proved a fertile recruiting ground for a new special needs football club, Oxfordshire Learning Disability FC, known as Old FC.
Mr Cowdrey said that organisers planned to combine the Parallel Games with the Oxfordshire Youth Games to make one event next year, in the same way that London will stage the Paralympics and Olympics together in 2012.
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