RNIB hosts ParalympicsGB athletes at London office to celebrate their success in Paris Games

ParalympicsGB javelin Gold medallist Dan Pembroke and ParalympicsGB swimming twins Eliza and Scarlett Humphrey, visited RNIB’s London office on Tuesday 10 September for a post Paralympic Games celebration.

ParalympicsGB CEO and former RNIB Chief Operating Officer Dave Clarke, also spoke at the event which was recorded by RNIB Connect Radio. The panel event was compered by Senior Content Producer Allan Russell, who also attended the Paris Paralympic Games recording content for RNIB Connect Radio.

Dan Pembroke who has retinitis pigmentosa, which means his vision has deteriorated since he was a teenager, threw an astonishing 74.49 metres at Stade de France last Thursday (September 5), smashing the world record distance by 3.48 metres.

He told the audience of RNIB staff and invited guests: “It was a good day at the office!

“We had so many people from the UK cheering us on, there were so many GB flags in the audience, it was awesome. It was that moment when I walked out in front of the crowd, I knew they would be my superpower to throw that javelin to 74.49 metres.”

Dan began throwing the javelin in secondary school before joining his local club and previously setting a Paralympic record of 69.2 metres at the 2020 Paralympic games in Tokyo.

Speaking about barriers for people with sight loss accessing sport, Dan explained: “What was a barrier for me was people’s perceptions of my vision impairment. I would tell people I was visually impaired and they would say: ‘what do you mean?’”

“We need to educate people more about what it is like to live with sight loss and that even if you don’t have a cane or a dog, you might still have a sight condition. Going into sport, you may be meeting coaches who just don’t know how to support you, so I hope the ParalympicsGB Equal Play campaign will help to increase that understanding much further.”

Twins Scarlett and Eliza Humphrey were Paralympic debutants at the Paris games. The 19-year-olds who are blind, first learnt to swim after their parents took them to a Learn To Swim class. Eliza is a double European medallist and Scarlett won a bronze medal at the 2022 World championships in Madeira. Both made the finals of a range of events in Paris.

Eliza said: “When I came out for the finals, the stadium just seemed to erupt. We had so many people from GB supporting us, it felt like home. To have that support for paralympic sport and for the swimming was incredible and motivated me even more.”

Scarlett added: “We don’t normally get that much support for paralympic swimming so it was quite incredible. I loved the energy that the crowd gave to the swimming. For us as swimmers with sight loss, we hear the atmosphere and the noise makes up for the fact we can’t see the audience. You want to train hard and swim well so that people can come and watch world class swimming.”

On getting into sport as a person with sight loss, Scarlett continued :

“We were lucky we were included in school in PE lessons which meant we could do PE with our classmates. This meant we were treated as ourselves and as individuals. Our classmates were often running guides for us which meant they could see how our sight loss didn’t have to be a barrier and sport could be adapted to include everyone.

“We also did Junior Parkrun when we were younger. This was really friendly and accessible at a grass-roots level. People very willing to be running guides. This kind of accessibility at grass roots level is key.”

While at RNIB, David Clarke helped set up the See Sport Differently campaign and is currently working on ParalympicsGB’s Equal Play initiative, both of which aim to break down barriers to sport for people with disabilities.

David explained: “It was an incredible Paralympic Games. Paris and France deserve all the credit. It was wonderful to experience it in an amazing city, the people really bought into it and the performances of our athletes were fantastic.

“But it’s about time disabled people had access to sport in the same way everyone else does. On one level it’s heartbreaking and on another level incredibly annoying. It’s time to make sure every disabled child has access to sport in school. Currently three out of four don’t.

“For starters, let’s include this in teacher training. Teaching trainees, unions and providers are well up for this. They want to learn about how to run inclusive PE lessons. We also want sport to be a key part of the curriculum. For too long, it has been put on the sideline for everybody.

“It’s not that difficult to change lessons to be inclusive but people do need to be taught how to do it. Finally, only about half a percent of all teachers would be identified as having a disability. Is it any wonder we are not getting this right in the classroom when the amount of lived experience in the classroom is so limited?”

“If we don’t have this the pipeline of athletes will dwindle. It’s not just about being an elite athlete, it’s also what sport brings at a grass roots level.”

Introducing the event, RNIB’s CEO, Matt Stringer, told guests: “I’ve been transfixed by the Paralympics in the last ten days and have had a real sense of pride watching our athletes compete.

“Watching the athletes prepare for these events makes us all pause for thought and think about those athletes with sight loss who would love to take part but don’t get the opportunities.

“Believe it or not, blind and partially sighted people are twice as likely to be inactive as sighted people. It’s not due to a lack of desire but is down to attitudinal and systemic barriers that exist in society. Accessibility awareness, cost, confidence and transportation are all key barriers.

“That doesn’t just apply to playing sport, it’s watching it too, with blind and partially sighted people half as likely to attend live sporting events.

“So RNIB is on a mission to change this. We need to see these barriers broken down and to raise public awareness of sight loss through sport and we want to see social change by leveraging major moments like the Paralympic Games which help show simple adaptations can enable blind and partially sighted people to access the same opportunities as everyone else.”

The ParalympicsGB Team won 124 medals, 49 of them Gold and came second in the overall medals table.

Find out more about RNIB’s See Sport Differently campaign and ParalympicsGB’s Equal Play campaign.

RNIB supports ParalympicsGB’s recent letter to the Prime Minister calling for disabled children to have equal access to school sport, as we know negative early experiences of sport and activity contribute to the many barriers stopping blind and partially sighted people getting active.

RNIB’s Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment provides a foundation for empowering educational settings and the wider community to promote and deliver inclusive physical education.

RNIB worked with ParalympicsGB on their Path to Paris programme earlier in the year, supporting the development of accessible resources to enable QTVIs and education professionals to involve children with vision impairments in PE and physical activity.