First Down's syndrome Team GB to compete at games

A team of athletes are preparing to go to the Down Syndrome World Championships as the first Team GB to compete in the games.

The team of five, based in Keighley, will compete in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 13 to 19 June in a variety of athletics disciplines.

The team train with Bradford, Keighley and Skipton Disability Athletics at Carlton School in Keighley.

Head coach Janet-Alison Arkwright said they decided to send a team to the championships after athlete Tessa Lightowler was the first Team GB athlete to be selected for the European Championships last year.

"It started because we always want to give disability, every disability, an opportunity," she said.

"And just by chance, we saw the Down's syndrome athletes taking part in the European Championships and we understood that there was no Team GB."

Now the club are taking five athletes to Bulgaria, three from Keighley, one from Bristol and one from London, but they have had to raise the money for their own expenses, as the team receives no external funding.

Arkwright said the event was no different to a Paralympic event, with a category for each Down's syndrome condition, such as Mosaic or Tri-21.

"It took a long time for the intellectual disability to come into the Paralympics, mainly because there is another category called the Virtus," she explained.

"The Virtus is just as a high level as Paralympics, and has three categories: autism, intellectual disability and Down's syndrome."

In Paralympic events these classifications fall under the intellectual disability category.

"The only difference to that is it's going to be very rare - hopefully one day it might happen - that a Down's syndrome athlete is going to be at the same ability as someone with an intellectual disability," she added

For the World Championships, Tessa, 31, will be joined by her brother Josh, 32, and teammate Joel.

Tessa and Josh's mum Val Lightowler said fundraising for their own transport and accommodation had been a challenge, but they had managed to raise more than £4,000.

"It's not been an easy journey, everything always seems to be last minute but we're getting there. The kit arrived, which is looking good," she said.

Arkwright said in future she hoped to be able to take even more athletes to championship events.

The club represents every Paralympic classification, apart from blade runners, including frame runners - which will be in the LA Games for the first time in 2028. It also supports transplant runners.

"To me this is just the starting block. We're having to raise our own money, but hopefully somebody will come along for future years and say here is a five-year sponsorship deal.

"I'm hoping in four years' time when we go to the worlds again, we're not just taking five athletes we're taking 20 athletes that would be my long-term goal for the Down syndrome," she said.

"When they go out to Bulgaria next week the world will be listening and the world will start looking because these games matter and these athletes matter," she added.

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