Jack Eyers: From Mr England to Paris 2024 Paralympic hopeful in Para-canoe

For Jack Eyers, choosing to have his right leg amputated at just 16 was "the best decision I ever made".

It is a decision that has given him a modelling career, and a Mr England crown. It is also a decision that has led to him winning two World Championship titles in Para-canoe.

But for the 35-year-old, the best is yet to come.

Having missed out on the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, Paris 2024 is an opportunity Eyers is refusing to let pass him by, determined to tick off his biggest achievement yet.

"I'm massively grateful and proud of being a two-time world champion, but to call myself a Paralympian... those are the people that I started to look up to, especially when I first had my leg amputated," he told BBC Sport.

"To reach a level of a role model that you've looked up to, in my eyes, is success."

'Changing the mould' on the catwalk

Eyers held the Mr England title from 2017-2019, and was the first amputee to win

Born with a condition called proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), which affected his hip, knee and femur, a teenage Eyers was "very embarrassed" and "very ashamed" of how his leg looked.

Initially advised to wait until he was 18 and had stopped growing, he convinced doctors to amputate above the knee at 16.

"I'm able to put a positive spin [on it] because my situation before amputation was far worse, in my opinion, than living life as an amputee," he said.

After his amputation, Eyers - from Bournemouth - played wheelchair basketball for GB juniors but later quit the sport to focus on his fledging career as a personal trainer.

He had his own business, working with other amputees and people with physical impairments, when he was contacted by Models of Diversity, a charity that campaigns for a greater diversity of models in the media and on catwalks.

Initially starting out in fitness modelling, he noticed a "grey area" in the lack of disabled models being used in the fashion world.

"My goal was to challenge a perception of disability," he said.

In 2017, he became the first amputee to be crowned Mr England, and since then has modelled at London and New York Fashion Weeks.

"I'm quite happy to say that I was one of the first amputees to really step into that world and it wasn't a very common thing," Eyers said. "Now it's quite common to see disabled models on the catwalks, whether that be in a wheelchair or amputee.

"It was very nerve-wracking because you don't know what people are going to think. Some of the able-bodied models, you could tell they weren't too happy about it.

"Before New York, I went to Italy. Fashion designers and catwalk producers just weren't happy with the idea because they were talking about the catwalk being like the ballet, there needs to be classic same shape models, same height models. We were changing that, we were changing the mould I believe for the better and it has been for the better."

'The pinnacle' of the Paralympics

Eyers competes in the VL3 category - for athletes with full function of their arms and trunk - and races in a va'a, an outrigger canoe with a support float

As well as his Mr England title, 2017 also marked the year in which Eyers joined the Great Britain Para-canoe programme.

His VL3 category made its Paralympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games - rearranged to 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic - and Eyers had been hoping to do the same, but was left "absolutely devastated" when he wasn't selected.

"I honestly thought that I was going to achieve it," he said. "I had to do a lot of work on myself to channel that into something good."

'Something good', it turned out, was just around the corner. Just weeks after the Paralympics ended, Eyers won his first World Championship gold medal in Copenhagen.

"I believe that's why I came out on top, because I figured out a way of using my emotions and I channelled them into success," he said.

Eyers retained his world title the following year, while 2022 also brought him a maiden European crown. He will go for a third World Championship title in Szeged, Hungary, in May.

But it is September that is circled on his calendar, his second shot at the Paralympics, and Eyers says competing in Paris would mark the "creme de la creme" of his career.

"It would make my career, it would be absolutely an overwhelming experience. It would be the pinnacle," he said.

"I'm in the best position that I could possibly be in. I am a completely different athlete than I was going for the Tokyo Games.

"My race plan has grown and developed, my physical ability has grown and developed, my resilience is there as well and I'm feeling really happy."

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