Daniel Hooker is a second year history undergraduate at Christ Church who is hoping to compete in the Paralympic 100 metres, 200 metres and long jump for Great Britain either at London 2012 or Rio 2016.
Great Britain has a great tradition in Paralympic sport, and in the last Paralympics Great Britain finished second overall. In Paralympic sport, and specifically athletics, there is a category system which takes into account different kinds of disability and levels of impairment within those categories. My category in athletics is 31 to 38, which refers to cerebral palsy, and within that I am rated 37 because two of my limbs are affected.
To be selected for the British team I need to either gain 880 points on the RAZA System (a way of equating performances in different disability categories) and therefore be considered a medal contender at 2012, or be considered a medal contender for the 2016 Games in Rio and therefore be picked for 2012 to give me experience of a Paralympics prior to that.
Since my best performance thus far has equated to 725 points (equivalent to three quarters of a second) it is unlikely that I will fall into the former category but if I can reduce my current personal best of 12.97s (inside the global B Qualification Standard) to the global A Standard of 12.60s I have a strong chance of being selected in the 100m. The same is true in the long jump if my B Standard National Record of 4.56m can be increased to the A Standard of 5.10m.
I started off participating in able-bodied sports and nearly made it to the county squash team. When I was 15 I knew I wanted to compete at an elite level and decided to contact various governing bodies and Cerebral Palsy Sport to explore options within disabled sport. Disabled sport began appealing to me because it was now a level playing field and I had no excuses to stand in my way of success.
I started full time training in athletics in the summer of 2007 and I’ve kept going ever since. My current coach has worked with the Welsh National Team in the past, and he has put together a programme which will really carry me forward. For the first time my training programme will be designed by only one person and this will ensure that all the facets of my training work together because, in the past two years, I have suffered injuries through doing contradictory gym and track sessions.
I study history – an essay subject – so I am able to study around my training. I really push myself to the limit at every training session which makes going out and partying like other students less appealing. However, I think it is a worthwhile trade-off because I am never happier than when I am out on the track or in the gym. I just love the feeling of going as fast as I can or lifting as much weight as I can. It makes you live in the moment and as a contrast to the intellectual challenge of Oxford that is fantastic.
The Paralympics are the only time where disabled athletes get to compete in front of real crowds. In my opinion it would be great if the disability world championship were held straight after the able-bodied world championship every year, rather than every four years, in order to gain more media and public attention which would help disability sports to grow in popularity.
My sporting hero is Maurice Greene, the great American sprinter. He is a former world record holder, former Olympic champion, and former world champion in the 60m and 100m. Most sprinters are six feet plus, even on the Paralympic side, but Maurice was five foot nine like me. He could start like a rocket and won everything so this gives me hope!
I also admire people of my own age who have broken into the top levels of disability sport. People like Paul Blake – a fellow cerebral palsy athlete whom I have shared a British relay team with - are inspiring as within two years of taking up the sport he became the 400m world champion in his category. Seeing him grit his teeth and hold on to win that race having lost massive leads in the 800m and 1500m only days earlier was very emotional. The idea that someone of my age, from my country, can go out there and win makes me think that I can do it too. If I increase the volume and quality of my training while avoiding injuries, it is possible.
