Sports Personality Of The Year: Paralympians Win Prizes And Announce Pregnancies

Same Difference sends sincere congratulations to:

• Young Sports Personality Of The Year- Josef Craig, Britain’s youngest gold medallist of the 2012 Paralympics, a swimmer with Cerebral Palsy. This award was  won by another Paralympic swimming star, a certain Ellie Simmonds, in 2008. It’s great to see it going to a DisAbled young person for a second time.

• Helen Rollason Award Winner- Martine Wright, the sitting volleyball player who became disabled when she lost both her legs in the 7/7 London bombings. In a tribute post to those involved in the bombings in 2010, I wished those who became disabled on that day well in a life in which I hoped they would one day be very happy. Martine Wright spoke on the programme today about how much she loves sitting volleyball and how she believes she was on that train so that she would particpate in the Paralympics. She has accepted her new challenges with true strength and has used them to find a new ability for herself through which she has achieved great things. She’s a true inspiration and is truly DisAbled in every possible sense of the word.

•   Team Of The Year- Team GB’s Paralympians, (oh, and the Olympians too) Both Team GB squads unsurprisingly won Team of the Year. This shows how far Paralympic sport has come and how seriously Paralympians are taken by the British public. Even though the main prize went to Bradley Wiggins, who I also sincerely congratulate, it was very good  to see the achievements of every single British Paralympian recognised with this award, in this very special, very appropriate way.

• Sarah Storey, who along with Ellie Simmonds and David Weir, was shortlisted for the main award. Just by being on the list, these three sporting stars broke down a barrier that few could have previously thought it would ever be possible to break. Hopefully, one day in the future, one of them may win the award. That was too much to hope for this year, realistically, but they came closer than any Paralympian has come before.

However, Sarah Storey deserves congratulations for another very special reason. Tonight, live on national television, she announced her first pregnancy. In this way she showed the entire British public that it is possible for disabled women to get pregnant, too. Sarah Storey and her husband and fellow Paralympian Barney Storey have the very best wishes of Same Difference for the very good health of both mother and baby throughout the pregnancy.