Tanni Grey-Thompson

Perhaps we need to redefine our idea of role models; they're not always elite athletes whose success might seem too distant or unachievable. Sometimes it's our friend who just smashed her first 10k, or our Zumba teacher who is enthusiastic, encouraging and real.

I wouldn't have had a sporting career if it hadn't been for the volunteers who agreed to coach me, as a teenager, growing up in south Wales, at a time when others were telling me that wheelchair racing wasn't really athletics.

As a disabled person I have to think and plan far more than anyone else. If I want to catch a bus I have to consider whether the ramp works, whether there will be someone in the one space who doesn't want to move. It can be a constant worry.

Disability sport came about largely because of exclusion, because mainstream sport didn't want disabled people to be part of it.