Back from the IWRF (international Wheelchair Rugby Federation) European Championships and I have another gold medal! This was my third European Championships and the second time I have been part of the winning team. However, this time was a lot different and mainly because I had decided to miss the final. This had seemed liken a huge decision for me, do I stay and be part of a team aiming to retain our number one ranking in Europe or do I fly home and attend my brothers weddi

So I have been back in the UK for just over a week now, and today feel like the first day I have had the chance to stop and take a breath. My time in Phoenix was both productive and very successful. The Ability360 Heat regained our national championship trophy, after an extremely hard fought final game against Minnesota. As I mentioned in my previous blog championships are never given, they have to be earned, and minessota made us earn that win. With the score tied at the sta

UK Sport announced on Friday the four year funding cycle for the next Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo 2020. GB wheelchair rugby’s funding has been cut, as have four other Olympic sports: weightlifting, fencing, badminton & archery. Angry, frustrated, disappointed, confused… There is not one word I can use to describe my emotions right now. I landed from a 10 hour flight to discover the news that UK Sport have decided not to fund the Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby Team f

Its time to reminisce over my time here with the Ability360 Heat team and focus on the ‘Best of the West’ tournament which is in its 27th year. I arrive back in the UK on the 9th of December, and I have to say I am really looking forward to it. I have never been one to get homesick. Even as a child heading off to boarding school for the first time aged 11, I can remember my parents having to call the school to check that I was doing ok because they hadn’t heard from me! This

As I have talked about in my previous blogs, Rio2016 left me feeling enormously disappointed, with a feeling of what might have been. However, it has also lit a fire beneath me, I know I don’t want to feel that disappointment again, so I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t. I want the attention that the ParalympicsGB medal winners got when they returned home (read more of my time in Rio here). I love how, in our country, we celebrate excellence and I would

I’VE RETURNED FROM RIO WITH VERY MIXED EMOTIONS. ON THE ONE HAND WHAT AN INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE THAT I WILL NEVER FORGET, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND I DIDN’T WIN A PARALYMPIC MEDAL. ALTHOUGH THE OLYMPIC CREED STATES: “THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES IS NOT TO WIN BUT TO TAKE PART, JUST AS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE IS NOT THE TRIUMPH BUT THE STRUGGLE. THE ESSENTIAL THING IS NOT TO HAVE CONQUERED BUT TO HAVE FOUGHT WELL”. We can definitely say that we fought well

IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE HOW FAST IT’S COME AROUND. IT DOESN’T SEEM 4 YEARS SINCE 2012, WHERE I WAS JUST ANOTHER SPECTATOR. IT HAS BEEN A LOT OF HARD WORK, WE’VE HAD FUN TIMES AND SAD TIMES ALONG THE WAY, BUT THIS IS IT – WE ARE IN RIO! We’re ready to go! The anticipation that comes with impending competition has been building the last few months. More than any previous competition, you can tell my teammates and myself are all mentally in that place where we just want to go and c

OLYMPIC FEVER WITH THE OLYMPICS GETTING CLOSER BY THE DAY JIM ROBERTS BLOGS ABOUT HIS JOY OF THE COMPETITION AND HIS REALISATION THAT HE IS A PARALYMPIC ATHLETE REPRESENTING #PA RALYMPICSGB. THE OLYMPICS HAVE STARTED! FOR ME IT’S BEEN THE ULTIMATE REALISATION OF JUST HOW SOON THE PARALYMPICS ARE. I’VE ALWAYS ENJOYED THE OLYMPIC GAMES BUT THIS TIME, FOR ME IT’S DIFFERENT. THIS TIME I GET TO HAVE MY SHOT! SEEING THE ENORMOUS JOY ON PEOPLE’S FACES WHEN THEY GET A MEDAL PUT AROUN

Disability sport is all about the Paralympics, at least that will be the main public perception. It’s also definitely the way as a sport we set out our performance cycle, everything starts and finishes with the Paralympic Games. In wheelchair rugby we’ve been working the last four years to gain qualification to the Paralympics and to be peaking for our performance whilst we’re there. In wheelchair rugby we have other major tournaments such as European championships which is a

So up to now my blogs have been a series of instalments covering how I got involved in wheelchair rugby and developed as a player. I’m currently at GB training camp trying to reflect on a pretty eventful couple of weeks. With Rio 2016 just around the corner I feel it’s a good time to bring things up to date. The GB wheelchair rugby team qualified for Rio by winning the European championship. More recently the team selection for Rio was made and I’m very pleased to say I was o