Active Summer Fun: 'I don’t like being unhealthy - I love to be out and about'
A new participation campaign created by the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) and National Disability Sport Organisations (NDSOs) is encouraging more disabled people to find out and play out over summer. Active Summer Fun -#ActiveSummerFun on social media - is an exciting new campaign that aims to support more disabled people to find ways to be active during the warmer months.
This summer we will be hearing from various disabled people or those who deliver activities that include disabled people. We hear how they are expecting the next few months to be very busy!
Today, Sophie Taylor talks to us. She is a competitive swimmer and wheelchair racer, and discusses combining studying with competing, as well as keeping fit and healthy.
Sophie’s Active Summer Fun:
I am both a wheelchair racer and a swimmer, so this summer has been pretty busy.
With swimming I competed at the National Championships in Sheffield earlier in the year, and then I went onto compete at the CPISRA World Games in Nottingham. I swam there, but I also competed in wheelchair races and so that was an incredible experience.
The 2015 CPISRA World Games took place in the historic city of Nottingham this summer, with over 400 athletes and coaches from 13 nations coming together to compete in six sports - athletics, bowls, football, para-taekwondo, swimming and table cricket.
I have only raced a season in wheelchair racing, so I expect this winter to be quiet because of the weather. If it has snowed, for example, then you can’t go out onto the track.
In terms of swimming, I have enjoyed it now for seven years, and I’m now 19.
I am just going into my second year of university. Prior to university I always swam, although not competitively until 2008. I used to horse ride a lot, but then once I moved to Loughborough it was no longer possible as it was something I needed a lot of help with. My parents weren’t there at university to help me out, so I knew I needed to find something else I could do, to accompany my swimming and give me some variety.
I tried out wheelchair racing, and it just so happened that the national wheelchair racing coach is based at Loughborough where I’m studying civil engineering. It was an excellent opportunity.
Starting wheelchair racing from scratch came fairly naturally to me, as I have always been into sport and fitness. It wasn’t a shock to my system, but it was strange to come into a sport for the first time. I was old enough to realise that I wasn’t very good at it, whereas if you’re very young you don’t mind.
But I found it an enjoyable challenge, because swimming just comes so naturally to me. Wheelchair racing was a completely fresh start and a wonderful challenge to take up a completely new sport.
I am in a chair all the time, switching between my day chair to my race chair in order to compete. When I was younger I sometimes walked around, but as I grew older my health issues became so much more difficult to manage.
Sometimes now, when I look back on it, I wish I had started using my chair full-time much earlier, because it made life easier.
When I was younger I wanted to persevere and walk everywhere, but now I have come to terms with using a chair, as someone with cerebral palsy.
I don’t like the idea of being unhealthy - I love to be out and about and doing stuff. I’m not very good at sitting still and I do like to be active all of the time.
In general, there are problems in our society in terms of obesity and other general unhealthiness. I don’t want to be one of those statistics, and of course when you have a disability there might almost be an excuse to be inactive. I don’t want to be – no matter what my condition I want to play sport, and it helps me feels I have achieved something.
I think people should try to get out and give things a go. I have tried sports that haven’t worked for me – wheelchair basketball is great fun but not really a pastime for me because of the need for coordination. But I gave it a try, plus wheelchair rugby.
I found wheelchair racing and loved it. So give things a try and if you don’t like a sport to start with please don’t think that all of sport is not for you. There will be something out there that you can find and enjoy.
Find out more about Active Summer Fun. Find out and play out this summer.
Cerebral Palsy Sport is the country's leading sports organisation supporting people who have cerebral palsy to reach their potential.
