Freddie Mahoney reckons he's a basketball hotshot and has a dream of playing in the next Paralympics in Athens.

The wheelchair-bound 22-year-old currently has to train with able-bodied players because there is no team in the area for disabled people.

They tower over him at their weekly training session in Witney's Windrush Leisure Centre but he holds his own by passing and shooting that much quicker.

"I really should be playing with other people in wheelchairs, but the nearest team is at Aylesbury and I can't get there on my own," he says.

"Everyone says I'm great at the game. I've been following the current Paralympic Games in Sydney, and I'd really like to be at the next one in four years' time," he says. Freddie, of Court Gardens, Witney, was lucky to survive a horrific motor cycle accident in July 1997.

He was in collision with a car on the Burford to Chipping Norton Road and sustained a broken back, pelvis and right leg.

Surgeons had to amputate his leg below the knee and he spent months recovering at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

He has been rebuilding his life and is now studying for a BSc in computer studies at Oxford Brookes University.

But his big aim is to shine at basketball. "It keeps me going," he says.

" I was always an active person and now I get great enjoyment out of the sport."

Freddie wants to join up with the Milton Keynes Aces team who train on Friday evenings at a sports centre in Aylesbury.

Anyone who can help him with transport to the sessions should contact him on 01993 704128.