Okoh 'shocked' to find out she had won Paris medal

Didi Okoh began running as a child, winning regional cross-country competitions

Great Britain's Didi Okoh was so caught up in one of the most dramatic moments of the Paralympics, she didn't immediately realise she had won a medal.

The 21-year-old came home from Paris with a bronze from the T63 100 metres after two of her rivals in the final tumbled over in a tangle of legs at the finish.

Her success came less than two years after taking up para athletics sprinting, having been diagnosed with lymphedema, which means she has one leg larger than the other due to excess tissue fluid.

"I looked back and there was a pile-up. I walked back to check if they were OK and as I walked back I hear a cheer in the crowd and looked up and saw my name on the board," Okoh, from Chelmsford, told BBC Essex.

"When you’re in that zone you don’t realise what’s going on. It’s over so quickly. In my peripheral [vision] I could see it, but I genuinely thought I was really far behind everyone.

"Because I didn’t know where I was in the race, I was just focusing on my technique, relax my shoulders and ran through the line. For me, it was a huge shock [to medal], I didn’t realise how in contention I was."

The two athletes who fell were Italian team-mates Monica Contrafatto and Ambra Sabatini - and the former was afterwards awarded official joint-third place.

Okoh, a former distance runner and high jumper before her condition was identified, spent the year building up to Paris dividing her time between training and studying for a law and criminology degree.

And it was not unknown for her to be in the library reading at 2.00am, having been honing her track technique during the day.

"I started being a para athlete at the end of 2022, [and] I’ve been sprinting for 10 months. It's so technical. I’d never touched blocks before so I had to learn how to use blocks and on top of that I was learning to cope with a new disability that I’d not run with before really.

"There was a lot of trial and error but I found a system that kind of works now."

Didi Okoh receives her bronze medal in Paris

Okoh - whose full first name is Ndidikama - finished third behind Contrafatto and Sabatini in her heat to qualify for the final, having started as a virtual unknown among her fellow competitors.

"I was really nervous in the heat because it was my Paralympics debut, my international debut, I’d never had a GB kit. I just wanted to go in there and have fun and not have that pressure on myself," she said.

"I didn’t have the best start and genuinely thought I was going to fall over in those first few steps [of the final]. I was a little bit shaken in the first part of the race but then I kind of controlled myself and wanted a PB."

Okoh's next target is the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships - "I don’t think they’ve confirmed a date or a place yet but I know it’s meant to be happening," she said - but having already won one medal, her main goal is the 2028 Paralympics.

"To medal in Paris was definitely a goal in the back of my mind somewhere but not really thinking about it," she added.

"But definitely LA for me is the main goal because I have a four-year cycle to focus on my training better, rather than balancing uni and training."

Didi Okoh was speaking to BBC Essex's Sonia Watson