Born
24/03/1990

Hometown
Edinburgh

Lives
Loughborough

Coach
Keith Antoine

Club
Charnwood

Career Highlights
2013 IPC Athletics World Championships, T12 100m & 200m – 2nd
2012 Paralympic Games, T12 100m – 2nd
2012 European Championships, T12 100m & 200m – 1st
2012 Paralympic World Cup, T12 200m – 2nd
2011 World Championships, T12 100m – 1st & T12 200m – 3rd
2011 World Games, T12 200m – 1st
2011 World Games, T12 100m – 2nd
2008 Paralympic Games, T12 100m – 2nd

Twitter: @LibbyClegg

Libby Clegg is Scotland’s most successful visually impaired female sprinter of all time. As a 16 year old she competed in class T12 for GB at the 2006 IPC World Championships in the Netherlands and won gold in 200 metres. From that moment a star was born and Libby has gone on to excel in every major competition since, including two Paralympic Games and many major championships.

Libby was born in Cheshire and attended the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh. Libby now lives in Loughborough, is affiliated to the Charnwood club and is coached by Keith Antoine. The Beijing Paralympic Games introduced Libby to the world stage and she responded accordingly with a silver medal in 100 metres.

Success after success followed in the build up to London 2012. At the Paralympic World Cup in 2009 Libby won gold in 100 metres and silver in 200 metres and a year later won gold in the same event for 100 metres. In 2011 in Turkey Libby won gold at the IBSA World Games over 200 metres and silver in 100 metres. In the same year she won silver and bronze in 200 metres and 100 metres respectively at the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester. 2011 will however be remembered for Libby’s outstanding gold medal in 100 metres and bronze for 200 metres at the IPC World championships in Christchurch, New Zealand.

In the build up to London, Libby excelled at the German Championships in Berlin, won double gold at the European Championships in the Netherlands and then completed her preparations with double silver at the Paralympic World Cup at Sportcity. The scene was set for her second Paralympic Games and yet again Libby turned in an exceptional performance, winning silver over 100 metres in a time of 12.13. One year later this outstanding young Scot produced double silver at the IPC European Championships in Lyon, France.

In July 2014, who can forget her gold medal 100 metres run at Hampden Park to win gold for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games on home soil. Throughout her career Libby has been an outstanding ambassador for SDS and Scotland and has made herself available as an athlete representative whenever required. Libby has been an inspiration to visually impaired sportswomen all over the world and the rapport she demonstrates with her guides is a feature of her great skills as an athlete.

Willie McLeod, was blind, won two Paralympic gold medals, a world championship title, and surpassed the world long jump best for the visually impaired athletes with a leap of 6.68 m, in 1985. Willie is Scotland’s most successful blind athlete to date.

When Willie decided to run a marathon, he could not find a guide fit enough to go the distance, so a relay of guides was enlisted, and they swapped the acoustic vest. He would recall his ski-ing experiences (he was the first visually impaired athlete to gain a slalom proficiency award) and told how children were watching the blind group, and their instructor was impressed by their style. “I want you to ski like the blind skiers, ” she told them. “The kids,” recounted McLeod with glee, “came down the hill with hats pulled over their eyes”.

Born in Springburn, Glasgow, Willie was a nine-year-old schoolboy when he lost the sight of one eye in a catapult accident. The other eye was affected, and he soon lost the sight of that one. He was a pupil at the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh from the age of 10, and later worked as a transcriber for Braille Press, rising to supervisor. Willie competed in four Paralympic Games, winning lawn bowls silver in 1976, in Canada. Four years later in Arnhem, McLeod won gold in the sprint and the bowls title. He was also British record holder at 100m and javelin, and gained several UK bowls titles.

Margaret McLean was his coach and mentor. As his “caller”, she stood with a loud-hailer at the end of the straight, or behind the pit when he jumped. “Five” is the call when running straight, “four” if the athlete strays to the left, and “six” if they go right. Yet that takes no account of running straight, but jumping squint. Every contest was a leap of faith, and once Willie landed on the concrete rim of the sandpit, hurting both feet badly. Willie taught Margaret to bowl, and they were still playing one another, having great fun, during the summer when he passed away.

When Willie broke the visually impaired world long jump record, he beat it by 77cms. This surpassed even the legendary Bob Beamon. When the American broke the world best to win Olympic gold in Mexico 1968, it was hailed as probably the greatest single athletics feat of the 20th century. He added “just” 55cms to the world best. It made him a legend. Beamon’s record lasted until the great Lewis v Powell clash in 1991 – the same night as Liz McColgan won world gold).

Information taken from an article by Doug Gillon and reproduced with the permission of the Herald.

Val Robertson (nee Forder) could be described as the outstanding all round wheelchair athlete of her generation. She excelled in every sport she attempted and there were many, and she represented her country at the highest levels of international sport. Val met her husband John – Commonwealth Games triple bowls gold medallist for Scotland in Manchester – at the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Perth Australia and moved from south of the border to Edinburgh. John and Val now live in Melrose.

Val was a member of the Scottish Paraplegic Association, the voluntary organisation that led the early developments of international disability wheelchair sports in Scotland. Val was a trail blazer who excelled in archery, athletics, swimming and fencing at Paralympic level. She remained in disability sport for many years and throughout the 70s and 80s she contributed to the development of the SDS Lawn Bowls programme as a member of the Lothian Disability Sport team.
Val’s first Paralympic Games were in Tokyo in 1964 where she medalled in archery, athletics, swimming and fencing. In swimming she won gold and two silvers, in archery she won silver, in athletics and fencing she won bronze medals. An incredible all round performance demonstrating the versatility and skills of this great athlete.

When Val returned from Tokyo she was awarded Disabled Sportsperson of the Year by the Sports Writers Association.

In 1968 she headed to the Games in Israel where she further improved her status as an international athlete with six gold medals, three in swimming, two in athletics and one in fencing for Team foil. One of her athletics gold medals was for pentathlon demonstrating she was world class in both track and field. In the 60s the Games involved large number of spinal injured wheelchair athletes and participants were expected to be multi-sport performers and nobody fitted that category better than Val.

Val missed out on the Games in 1972 in Germany and headed off to Toronto in 1976 where she competed in her final Games, winning bronze for fencing. Around this time she became very involved in lawn bowls and with her colleagues at the Thistle Foundation developed ways in which wheelchair users could access greens more easily. The ramp developed at the Thistle Foundation features in the 70 s pioneering film – produced by the Disabled Living Foundation – entitled “Not Just a Spectator” features Val delivering a bowl from the innovative ramp. Ramps designed on the Thistle spec have been used to assist individuals with severe mobility difficulties to enjoy bowls for the past 40 years. Val became an outstanding wheelchair bowler who excelled within the wheelchair sports movement. She remains to this day the leading wheelchair female bowler ever to play in the SDS National Bowls Championships and has now turned her attention to wheelchair curling in her leisure time.

The origins of disability sport in Scotland centre in Edinburgh and around Cargil Terrace the office base of the Scottish Paraplegic Association. The late AR Mitchell and SDS Vice President Jean Stone served that organisation for many years and helped establish Scotland as a world force in disability sport. Many great SPA members went on to be international performance athletes and the arrival of Val in Scotland greatly enhanced the Scottish squad. The legacy of the Robertson family is the strong disability bowls success Scotland now enjoys at international level.

Tracy is Scotland’s most successful sports person with a learning disability, winning a total of 39 medals in swimming at Paralympic, World or European level. Tracy was a pupil at Balwearie High School and initially swam with Burntisland Swimming Club before moving to join a very strong squad of Paralympians to be coached by Eddie Campbell at Glenrothes Swimming Club. Tracy completely transformed attitudes to S14 swimming in Scotland and Great Britain during the 90s.

Tracy’s record in World Championship swimming was exceptional and is unlikely ever to be bettered. Tracey won 9 medals in total of which 6 were gold at the World championships of 1994 and 1998. Between 1995 and 2001 at four successive European Championships, Tracy won 25 medals of which 22 were gold.

It was in Atlanta in 1996 that Tracy was at the peak of her form. Her 2 gold medals were confirmation that she was the leading S14 swimmer in the world at the time, and just reward for years of dedication to her sport. One silver and 2 bronze medals followed in Sydney in the Games that ended the involvement of athletes with a learning disability in Paralympic sport. The head to heads that Tracy had during her spell at the top with the great swimmers in her class from Australia and Scandinavia were memorable and she gained herself the reputation as the high performance swimmer for the big occasion. Britain’s attitude to S14 women’s swimming changed when Tracy Wiscombe arrived on the scene and she was a sad loss to Scotland when she moved south of the Border and an even greater loss to Great Britain when she retired after Sydney.

Tracy was a Paralympic swimmer from Fife who was fully included in mainstream swimming and excelled in both disability swimming and mainstream swimming locally and nationally. The pathway she followed from school to club to GB selection was the model for any individual with a learning disability. Tracy remains a role model in her home area for successive generations of performance athletes with a learning disability across all sports.

Tom is one of Scotland’s most talented all round wheelchair sportsmen. His record in international sport is very impressive and he is one of a unique breed of disabled sportsmen who has excelled at Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. Wheelchair fencing, table tennis, basketball and more recently curling are the sports where Tom has made his mark.

Tom has represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games and was a Summer Paralympian in 1980 and 1984 where he won 2 silver and 2 bronze medals for fencing. He has won medals for Scotland and Great Britain in fencing, table tennis, basketball and wheelchair curling. He has won a considerable number of British Championships and like so many of the wheelchair curling team he is a great team player. Tom played table tennis from his wheelchair in the mainstream Open Edinburgh and Lothian League for many years. In the early years of the SDS Table Tennis Championships, Tom dominated the section for wheelchair players. His chair handling skills were exceptional and his ability to cover the table had to be seen to be believed.

In 2003, Tom joined the Braehead Club and was introduced to wheelchair curling and very quickly established himself within the Scottish team. Tom is now a regular member of Scottish and British wheelchair curling teams. Success in individual and pairs competitions quickly followed and in 2005 he was selected for the Scottish team that went on to win the World Championship at Braehead. Selection for Great Britain soon followed and he was a key member of the GB team that won silver at the Winter Paralympics in Torino. Tom was also a member of Team GB at the Winter Paralympics in Vancouver and is all geared up to challenge for a place in the GB Team for the Winter Paralympics in Russia in 2014.

Tom was Scottish Wheelchair Curling Champion in 2007, 2010 and 2011 and British Champion in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009. He has the record of having competed in every World Championships between 2005 and 2012, the most recent being in South Korea.

Tom is a gentle giant who is ideally equipped for a curling team. He is as passionate now about his sport as he was when he first became involved in the 70’s. Tom’s wife Maggie was an outstanding wheelchair fencer who also achieved great success in international sport. Tom was selected to carry the Olympic Torch for London 2012.

For over fifteen years Stephen performed with considerable success at the highest level in international disability athletics and from 1994 until he retired, Stephen was consistently Scotland’s most successful athlete. Stephen has cerebral palsy with a weakness on one side of his body which impacted on his sprinting technique.
Stephen burst on to the scene as a T38 sprinter at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Berlin in 1994 and won three gold medals and set a world record. He was then a first pick for Team GB and rarely if ever disappointed. The T38 class experienced massive improvements in performance during his career and Stephen was up there with the best in the world.

Selection for the Paralympic Games in Atlanta followed in 1996 and he repeated the achievement of Berlin and added a bronze in the 4 x 100metres relay. This was the period when Stephen was at his very best and at the World Championships in Birmingham in 1998 he had his finest hour with world record runs in 100m, 200m, and 400 metres and another in 4 x 400metres relay. Undefeated in the sprints in the T38 class and the world record holder in all three is how the young Livingston man headed towards Sydney in 2000.

From 2000 onwards Stephen consistently received the call to represent GB at European, World and Paralympic level. In Sydney he won two silver and two bronze medals and at the IPC world championships in 2002 in Lille he won two silver medals. In Athens in 2004 he was once again in the medals and maintained his record of having won medals in all three of his Paralympic Games with a bronze in the 400m. This success was only 9 months after breaking his right ankle. Further successes were recorded at CPISRA World Games and the double gold medal wins at the IPC European Championships in Assen in the Netherlands in 2003 are up there with his finest performances. Stephen also returned to Assen in 2006 for his final IPC world championships where he won bronze in the 400m. Stephen’s signed off from high performance disability athletics at the Paralympic Games were in Beijing and few athletes can claim to have competed at the highest level in such a competitive class for so many years.

Stephen is a graduate of Napier University, the University of the Pacific California USA and post graduate from Teesside University. Throughout his athletics career he received coaching support from John de Courcy and Eric Simpson in particular. As a Lottery Funded athlete he benefited from support services provided through the Scottish Institute of Sport. Over the years he has been a prolific winner of Sports Awards such as the British Sports Writers Award 1996, Scottish Athlete of the Year SAF 1996, Sunday Mail Great Scot Unsung Hero 1996 and the SDS Athlete of the Year 2006 and 2005. Stephen had a very successful career and is undoubtedly one of Scotland’s greatest ever international disabled athletes.

Paul competed in five successive Paralympic Games winning a total of 15 Paralympic medals including four golds. In each Games he won at least one medal in a Paralympic career that ran from 1984 until Sydney 2000.

Paul became involved in disability swimming as a pupil at Glenwood High School in Glenrothes. Brittle bones (osteogenesis imperfecta) caused him considerable inconvenience as a high school pupil because of the many breaks he had to deal with. Undaunted by successive periods in plaster, he spent many a lunch hour developing his swimming skills or improving his ability as a representative school table tennis player. In each of these sports he established himself as the number one in Scotland. Many a battle he had at the National Championships with George Keith from Aberdeen and on a number of occasions he won the National singles and doubles titles partnered by fellow Fife Paralympian Lara Ferguson.

Paul also won 6 medals in world championships between 1986 and 1998 and 8 European Championship medals in 1991 and 1997. Paul is a past GB Team Captain and was a key member of the British team throughout the 80’s and 90’s and is known for his ability to turn out a top performance on the big occasion. As a relay team member he has an exceptional track record. For almost 20 years he was a member of Glenrothes Swimming Club and held every Scottish disability swimming Men’s Open Record. Drew Young and Eddie Campbell were club coaches who supported Paul throughout his career.

Paul was recognised for his contribution to swimming by the award of the MBE and he still gives so much of his leisure time back to disability sport as the Chairman of Disability Sport Fife. Paul is an accountant with Fife Council and is the SDS national swimming records keeper. Paul has made a name for himself as an announcer at international disability swimming events and was on duty at the Olympic pool during the 2012 Paralympic Games. Paul is a model sportsman in every way who has achieved so much and continues to offer so much to the development of disability sport. During his time at top Paul was totally committed to his club, local Branch and country and gained a reputation as a fierce opponent at home and overseas.

Michael has been involved in seven Summer and Winter Paralympic Games, three as a wheelchair basketball player and bowler, two as a wheelchair basketball coach and two as a wheelchair curler. Michael won 2 Paralympic bronze medals for bowls in Toronto in 1976. Michael led Team GB in wheelchair basketball during a period of great success at international level. In 1993, he was voted Scottish and UK Coach of the Year.

Throughout his career he has been a wonderful role model for wheelchair sportspeople in all sports. In 2000, when wheelchair curling was in its infancy in Scotland, Michael caught the bug and like everything he does launched himself into the sport with total commitment. Not surprisingly success followed. A bronze in 2002 in Sursee in Switzerland was followed with gold medals as a member of the winning Scottish Team at the World Championships in 2004 and 2005. In addition he has won Scottish and British open titles.

Michael’s finest hour was in 2006 when he won silver as a member of the GB Winter Paralympic Wheelchair Curling team. In 2007 he was the Scottish skip when Scotland won bronze at the World Championships in Sweden.

Michael has contributed so much more to Scottish and British Curling teams than his skill as a wheelchair curler. He is a great motivator, enthusiast and supporter of his fellow players. He is a wonderful team player. His whole life has been in team sports and he has brought that experience to the sport of wheelchair curling for Scotland and GB. He plays his part in the development of the sport as a coach and he is always keen to offer advice to up and coming players.

Michael also team managed the Scottish Bowls team to third place success in Australia at the IBD World Championships in 2007. A true champion, a real gentleman, a proud Scot and one of Scotland’s leading sporting role models.

Mary Ann Low remains Scotland’s finest ever blind sportswoman. Throughout the 80’s and into the 90’s she was a permanent member of the Great Britain swim team. Mary Ann was a member of the St Thomas Club in Arbroath and despite being totally blind she swam in mainstream galas all over Scotland, the only blind swimmer at the time. Mary Ann excelled in school sport when a pupil at the Royal Blind School.

Mary Ann won a total of 36 medals at World, European and Paralympic level at a time when blind swimming was exceptionally strong internationally. At the 1990 World championships she won 2 silver and 2 bronze medals and at the European Championships in 1991 she won 4 silver and 1 bronze medals. Mary Ann represented GB at the Paralympic Games in New York, Seoul and Barcelona winning a total of 7 Paralympic medals and medalling in all three Games. Her finest hour was in New York in 1984 when she was at her peak. She won one gold, one silver and three bronze medals.

In IBSA competitions Mary Ann excelled between 1981 and 1989. In her first European Championships in 1981 she won silver and bronze. In 85 and 87 in Rome and Moscow she won 1 gold, 2 silver and 7 bronze medals. Mary Ann’s finest hour in International blind swimming was at the European Championships in Zurich in 1989 where she won 5 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze.

During the early years Mary Ann excelled as a junior in both athletics and swimming. At the World Junior Games held in Gateshead in 1981 she was in outstanding form on the track and in the pool and it was clear to the Scottish Management Team she would go on to even greater successes. That Scottish team was the first multi disability, pan disability sports team organised by SDS and Mary Ann was one of the leading performers in a great Scottish team performance. As a team member she was an exceptional personality. Despite being totally blind she was amazingly independent and has been an inspiration to so many others from the Royal Blind School who have followed her lead into performance sport.

Mary Ann Low will always be remembered for her contribution to Scottish sport at a time when financial and technical support was basic. She was up there with the best in the world for a decade but sadly like so many others with great talent of her era she was ahead of her time.