Nathan Stephens

Nathan Stephens, Paralympic field events

21 year old Nathan Stephens competes in the F57 Discus, Javelin and Shot Put events. At the age of nine, Nathan had both legs amputated after he was run over by a train. This terrible accident has never stopped Nathan aspiring to achieve his personal goals.

Nathan is one of the UK’s most talented Paralympic athletes. He has won gold medals in all three of his events at the British Open Athletics Championships and the Junior World Championships. Nathan has represented Great Britain at both the Paralympic Winter Games 2006 and the Paralympic Games in Beijing last year, where he narrowly missed out on a medal. He finished fourth in the javelin, eight in the shot put and eleventh in the discus.

The inspirational Welshman manages to combine his busy training and competition schedule with studying for a sports coaching degree at UWIC University in Cardiff. Nathan will be competing in the F54-57 Shot Put in the BT Paralaympic World Cup 2009, where he hopes to improve on his sixth place finish last year.

“Looking ahead to 2012, I think I’ll be a lot more nervous than I was in Beijing as I’ll be in front of a home crowd and the expectation is there. But I take that on positively and think it will spur me on to do my best and hopefully get a podium spot. The BT Paralympic World Cup is always a good marker to know where you stand in the rankings, having the opportunity to compete there in the years leading up to 2012 is great and I’m really looking forward to it this year.”