David Wetherill: Para-table tennis player wins European gold a month after heart surgery

David Wetherill underwent cardiac surgery in the middle of August

British para-table tennis player David Wetherill won European gold and bronze medals last week, a feat not new to the three-time Paralympian.

But just a month before winning team gold and class six singles bronze the 29-year-old had undergone surgery to replace a pacemaker he has fitted.

"I needed to semi-urgently go in and get the pacemaker replaced," he said.

"It wasn't too serious, it was a pretty routine thing but it came at a bad time," he added to BBC Radio Cornwall.

Wetherill's performance has all-but guaranteed him a place at Tokyo 2020, where he will hope to win a first Paralympic medal.

Wetherill (left) and doubles partner Paul Karabardak were part of Great Britain's three-strong team that won gold in Sweden this month

He reached the quarter-finals in Rio in 2016, having failed to progress past the pool stages in London to Beijing.

"We were trying to put it off until after Tokyo, but the doctors and surgeons said it needed to be done," added Wetherill, who was born with a rare heart condition known as Tetralogy of Fallot.

"But it's a nice relief to get it done and focus on next year now."

And now that his heart is working as it should be he is aiming solely on his fourth Paralympic Games.

"I've won European medals, I've won World Championship medals, but I still haven't got the Paralympic one," he added.

"So that's the one missing at the moment and fingers crossed I can rectify that next year."