Paralympics Paris: “I never blamed rugby for my injury” – David Ross of ParalympicsGB

“I remember talking to my mom and she said, 'Do you think you're going to go all out here?' I just said no. I knew I had a chance to do it if I got off to a clean start.”

David Ross first became involved as part of the British wheelchair rugby team's preparations for the Rio Paralympics and had to wait two cycles for his first appearance at the Games. But ahead of tomorrow's competition in Paris, the 29-year-old never considered ending his time on the field.

Even if his international career had ultimately not been successful, the County Down man is sure he would still be involved in some capacity in a sport that he says helped him “get a little bit of normality back” after suffering a life-changing injury in a school rugby match 11 years ago.

Ross was representing Wallace High School in February 2013 when he became trapped under a collapsed backpack. This routine incident resulted in a bizarre injury that left the then 18-year-old paralyzed from the neck down.

He had not yet expected to have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair when a chance encounter introduced him to the sport in which he will compete in the Paralympics in the future.

“I trained quite hard at school and watched my diet,” he told BBC Sport NI.

“I met a [wheelchair rugby player] Will was in rehab one day and he had KFC with him. He said to me, “If my trainer knew I was eating that, he would kill me,” and that sentence was like a lightbulb in my head – “I used that, I have to do that, I can still do that.”