West Midlands athletes confident ahead of Paralympics

Para-archer Phoebe Paterson Pine, from Telford, is hoping to bring home another gold, after winning in Tokyo 2020

Athletes from across the West Midlands say they are feeling confident ahead of the start of the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.

The opening ceremony will be focused on the Place de la Concorde, a major public square, at 19:00 BST on Wednesday, with events starting the following day.

The athletes include Shropshire para-archer Phoebe Paterson Pine and Hereford javelin thrower Dan Pembroke. Also in Paris is former Olympic athlete and now coach, Joel Fearon.

"I’ve basically been prepping for the last three years," said Paterson Pine.

Great Britain is fielding 215 athletes in Paris across 19 sports, with 116 men and 99 women.

Paterson Pine, 26, is looking to defend the gold medal she won in Tokyo.

"I know people want to beat me, and that’s fine, I want to beat me too," she said.

Daniel Pembroke has been named captain of the men's athletics team

Although she aims to bring home another gold, she said even if she failed to win, she would always be a champion.

"If I go out and I win gold in Paris then fantastic, I’ll be Paris Paralympic champion," she said.

"But if I don’t, I’ve still got such a long career ahead of me, that I’m able to go: 'What went wrong?' and then move on with it and get ready for LA."

Pembroke won gold in Tokyo in the javelin, and this year was named men's captain for the GB athletics team, which he said was a "great honour".

He said training had not been easy, but a recent session before leaving for the games had gone well.

"It was phenomenal. I don’t want to say what I threw, but it was good," he said.

"I’m going in with a hell of a lot of confidence."

Joel Fearon has been coaching sprinter Jonnie Peacock

After his Tokyo win, Pembroke brewed a beer called Tokyo Gold, and revealed he had already brewed a Paris Gold before he left for the city.

"You've got to manifest something for it to happen," he said.

Fearon was an Olympic bobsledder, and has been coaching three-time gold-medal winning para-sprinter, Jonnie Peacock.

"We're going to be bringing home some hardware," Fearon said.

"The most important thing I’ve given him, is somebody to chase."

He added that the upcoming Games had been making him emotional.

"Because their stories are so different in the Paralympics, and their journeys to this point and their obstacles are so different, I find it more inspiring," he said.

Back in Hereford, Sue Cockroft, who went viral for knitting an Olympics-themed post box topper, revealed her newest creation for the Paralympics.

It featured the Eiffel Tower, Olympic rings, and a female athlete in a wheelchair.

"I had a really nice message from a lady whose daughter is a wheelchair user and said, 'I hope you’re going to do the Paralympics, my daughter would like to see somebody like herself.'"