96: The Perception of Adversity - James Roberts

Sports Mastery

James was born with a congenital disability called femoral dysplasia and a floating hip of the left leg as well as scoliosis of the spine. James' grew up on a NATO base in Belgium but now reside back in Prestatyn, North Wales. He is an online training and nutrition coach by trade but he was an elite Paralympic athlete for just over a decade. He has been lucky enough over those years to have represented Great Britain at countless World Championships and 2 Paralympics Games (Beijing 2008 and London 2012) to just name a few.

He started out his sporting career in swimming and was part of British Swimming's Potential Squad from 2003-05. During that time, I held the SB8 200m breaststroke and 50m breaststroke national records.

After being dropped from the GB swimming programme, he moved on to rowing in 2006. The transition happened fairly quickly as James' made his first senior international competition that summer at the 2006 World Championships in Dorney Lake, Great Britain and made the final finishing 6th. 2007 World Championships Semi-Finalist, 2008 Paralympic Finalist (5th) and 2009 World Championships Finalist (5th).

He made another transition of sport, this time to sitting volleyball (aka now Para Volley). From 2010 until 2012, he amassed 56 caps for Great Britain. His first international was a surprise selection to compete at the 2010 World Championships in Edmund, Oklahoma, the USA. He was lucky enough during his time with the squad, to have competed for Great Britain at his only European Championships in his repertoire as well as a Continental and Intercontinental Cups. James' career calumniated at the London 2012 Paralympics where the GB sitting volleyball squad lost in the quarter-final to eventual silver medallist Iran.

In this episode, James discusses:

• Overcoming adversity
• Seeing himself as more than an amputee
• Seeing himself as more than an athlete

For more information visit: fitamputee.co.uk

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