Wheelchair racing athlete, Josie Pearson

Josie Pearson, from Hay-on-Wye in Wales, is a young sprint wheelchair racing athlete. Josie, when she was just 17-years-old, was involved in a head-on road smash in North Wales in which her boyfriend was killed and she was left a tetraplegic, her neck broken and paralysed from the chest down. However she has fought back from adversity to become a top wheelchair racing athlete. Josie has previously represented Great Britain at the 2007 International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports (IWAS) Games in Taepei. Having only trained in a racing chair for five months she came fourth in the 100 and 200 metres distances with respectable times.

Both UK Athletics Disability and the Federation of Disability Sport Wales are in agreement regarding Jodie’s potential; she is ranked in the top ten in the world already after only a season in the sport. She used to play wheelchair rugby for Great Britain and competed at the Beijing Paralympics 2008, her team narrowly missing a bronze medal by coming fourth in the finals; however she has since shifted her focus to wheelchair racing.

In August 2010 she was awarded a £750 grant by the JWCT via its partner organisation, Sports Aid. Sports Aid is a JWCT partner organisation helping the next generation of young able-bodied and disabled British sportsmen and women to succeed.

Josie said “in the last eight months . . . I've been attending as many track meets as possible in order to try and obtain the qualifying standards for the World Championships in January in New Zealand. My first track season was very successful and I managed to get respectable B standards in both the 100 and 200 metres. This ranked me fifth in the world. I knew this wouldn't guarantee me a place at worlds but luckily I received the phone call saying that I had been successful in selection. So I'm now training hard in preparation for World’s.”

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