The inaugural Scottish Disability Sport/Lothian Disability Badminton Club (LDBC) Championships were held at Engage Centre, at Edinburgh’s Napier University on Saturday 28th January. Given the inclusion of para-badminton in the programme for Tokyo 2020 Paralympics it is imperative that the pathways from local to national involvement in this fine sport are strengthened. Part of this process is ensuring players are exposed to relevant competitive opportunities against their peers from around Scotland and this event served to fulfil that role with both Scotland’s top players and those slightly newer to the sport competing across 21 sections to determine who would become the first ever champions of this event.

The competition saw sections in the categories of standing, wheelchair and players with a learning disability – with players banded into sub-sections appropriately. In the SL3 section the pre-tournament favourite Alan Oliver was victorious as expected, but not before being tested by his stablemate Colin Leslie in both the group stages and the final. They were to meet again in the final of the doubles event where in one of the most exciting matches of the tournament Alan and Bobby Laing prevented Colin from exacting revenge for his singles defeat. Colin and David Purdie eventually lost 16-21, 22-20, 21-19 however, the match was as close as it gets and it seemed an injustice that one side had to lose. Colin, however, was not to be denied a gold medal and was rewarded for his endeavour by victory in the mixed doubles with the experienced Mary Wilson – a familiar face across many sports on the SDS programme. They defeated Bobby Laing and Dierdrie Nagle in the final. Bobby and Dierdrie did manage to win the SS6 Mixed doubles title beating the Davidson siblings Finlay and Sky. Bobby added a further two gold medals to his collection in the SS6 Singles and the SL4 Singles events defeating Andrew Davidson and David Purdie respectively.

Lothian Disability Badminton Club – so integral to this event’s inauguration – saw further success through player and coach Fiona Christie comfortably won the WH section with further LDBC success in the form of Ross Foley’s doubles win.

The sections for players with a learning disability were very hotly contested with Grant Hunter defeating Michael McGraw in the final of the Class 1 section, reversing the result from the earlier group stage. Michael McGraw was able to taste victory in the Men’s Doubles event though, before Grant Hunter added the Mixed title to his Singles success, partnering Linzi Finnigan to defeat the ever-present Michael McGraw and Jenny Gray. Fife’s Lloyd Simpson and Lothian’s Matthew Power claimed the Class 2 & 3 titles respectively with Diane Gillian doing the Class 1 ‘double’ with title wins in the Singles & Doubles events, partnering Aimee-Leigh Allan.

SDS is grateful to the efforts of all the players who competed, and the officials and volunteers of Badminton Scotland who marshalled the event so expertly on the day. Thanks should also go to Lyndon Williams, who saw this event through from inception to implementation but was regrettably unable to join in the fun on the day as a prior engagement in Wales precluded his involvement. All in all a fantastic first event and one that should become a fixture on the national calendars of both SDS and Badminton Scotland. Thanks to all involved for their efforts in ensuring its undoubted success.

Full results can be found at SDS/ LDBC Tournament Results

Photo Credit: Roselind Hall

Photo (L to R): Men’s Doubles Finalists: David Purdie & Colin Leslie (Runners-up), Bobby Laing & Alan Oliver (Winners)

Mark Gaffney
SDS Events Manager

Rio 2016 Paralympian Robyn Love has been selected for the GB Women’s Wheelchair Basketball team to compete in the Osaka Cup taking place in Japan.

The women’s programme had great success on the world stage in 2016 with the senior team securing their highest ever Paralympic finish and the former SDS Academy Athlete was a key part of that success.

The Osaka Cup provides a great standard of competition that comes at the start of the Tokyo 2020 cycle.  Undoubtedly this event will provide an invaluable opportunity to refine travel strategies and work on team dynamics early in the cycle.

For more information please visit the GB British Wheelchair Basketball website:
http://www.britishwheelchairbasketball.co.uk/gbwba/index.cfm/news/osaka-cup-team-announcement/

89 delegates attended the SDS Coaching Conference in Stirling on Sunday 29 January 2017 and fantastic learning opportunities were on offer throughout the day.  Richard Brickley MBE provides his thoughts on the day.

“Nik Diaper, Head of Sport Science and Sports Medicine  at the English Institute of Sport, and Matt Hammond, Performance Manager at GB Boccia, provided stimulating keynote addresses on Rio 2016 and planning for Tokyo 2017.

Morning and afternoon workshops in transition tolerance and toughness, leadership and mentoring, nutrition and hydration, developing an adapted programme, communication and planning and preparation for a major event offered delegates lots of food for thought.

A panel session of coaches and athletes involved in Rio and a “looking forward” session  from Mike Whittingham, sportscotland’s Director of High Performance, rounded off the very full day programme perfectly.”

Many thanks to all the coaches and support staff who supported the event.

Gordon Reid completed a career Grand Slam of men’s doubles wheelchair tennis titles on Friday after partnering Joachim Gerard of Belgium to win the Australian Open crown 6-3, 3-6, (10-3) against Alfie Hewett and Argentina’s Gustavo Fernandez.

With two Australian Open titles secured so far for players on the Tennis Foundation’s Wheelchair Tennis World Class Programme, Andy Lapthorne will bid for another on Saturday. Lapthorne takes on Dylan Alcott of Australia in the quad singles final, when he will bid to add to the quad doubles title he won on Thursday. The match will take place on Rod Laver Arena.

With Brits on either side of the net in the men’s doubles final, second seeds Reid and Gerard made a confident start and took a 4-0 lead before Hewett and Fernandez managed to recover one of the breaks against them.

After beating Paralympic champions and top seeds Stephane Houdet and Nicolas Peifer in their semi-final, Hewett and Fernandez made the early breakthrough in the second set, turning a 2-0 lead into a 5-2 advantage and forcing the match tie-break. However, Reid and Gerard went through the last seven points of the match tie-break without reply to win their first Grand Slam title together.

“I’m very happy to finish this Australian trip on a high after some disappointing results and performances at times. It was a last minute decision to play with Jo but one that has paid off,” said Reid after the fifth Grand Slam doubles title of his career. “I don’t think any one of us played our best tennis in the final today, but we upped our level when it mattered in the match tie-break. It’s also a great feeling to complete the career doubles Grand Slam.”

Reid had previously won the Roland Garros and US Open doubles titles in 2015 and added the Wimbledon doubles crown to a second title in Paris in 2016.

“It was a tough final. The momentum kept switching as the match went on,” said Hewett. “We started a bit slow again and they pressured us into making errors. But once again it was a real positive that we fought back. We just didn’t have the composure or consistency to keep it up in the match tie-break. It was a really great atmosphere to play in and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my first Australian Open experience. I’m looking forward to going back home and working on everything I have learnt this week.”

Lapthorne was awarded a walkover in his scheduled third and last quad singles round-robin match against Heath Davidson after the Australian withdrew due to injury.

World No.3 Lapthorne will now bid to go one better than in 2013 when he reached his first Australian Open quad singles final.

Photo courtesy of the Tennis Foundation

Sunday 22^nd January 2017

The Mercat Gait Centre in East Lothian played host to the Scottish Disability Sport / Scottish Swimming National Short Course Performance Swim Championships on Sunday 22^nd January 2017, attracting 42 swimmers with a physical, sensory or learning impairment from all regions of the country.

The Performance Championships are a strong partnership event between Scottish Disability Sport and Scottish Swimming and were introduced to support regional development and create an appropriate competition for regional and national squad swimmers, inviting individuals from the Highlands, Grampian, Central, Fife the West and East of Scotland.  The event implements the IPC Multi-Classification system and for a number of swimmers, this was the first time they had experienced the British Swimming Points Scoring System allowing them valuable an introduction to these conditions and therefore preparing them for future competitions.

Records Tumble

The calibre of swimmers was evident for all to see, highlighted by the attendance of three Paralympians – Scott Quin & Stephen Clegg (East of Scotland) and Abby Kane (West of Scotland).  Paralympic medallists Quin (25) and Kane (13) demonstrated the form that secured silver medals in the SB14 and S13 classifications respectively, with youngster Kane building on that success by breaking three Scottish Records in the 50m Free (30.50), 100m Fly (1:18.69) and 100m Breast (1:26.29).  On top of this, the REN 96 swimmer wowed the crowd with an astonishing performance, swimming inside the world record time for the S13 100m Back – completing the distance in 1:09.42.

There were also notable performances from Borders Elite Swim Team (BEST) swimmer Beth Johnston who lowered the Scottish record in the S10 100m Back (1:16.77), Kayleigh Haggo (West of Scotland) and Rosie Sheridan (Central) who also claimed new Scottish records.

In total there were 66% of swims where personal bests were achieved, highlighting the importance of this gala in terms of encouraging the development of swimmers.

Scottish Disability Sport would like to express thanks to all the dedicated volunteers from the SASA East District for their invaluable support on the day, as well as the expertise provided from multi Paralympic medallist Jim Anderson OBE who kindly handed all medals to the successful swimmers.  Paul Wilson, the Disability Performance Development Manager, was also present to ensure the smooth running of the event lending his experience to the points system for the event.

For further information on the event or swimming for people with disabilities in Scotland, contact Scottish Disability Sport on 0131 317 1130 or email admin@scottishdisabilitysport.com.

Britain’s Millie Knight won downhill gold on the opening day of the IPC World Para Alpine Skiing Championships in Italy and was led to victory by her Scottish guide Brett Wild.

The visually impaired 18-year-old, who was GB’s youngest athlete at the Sochi 2014 Paralympics, completed the course in one minute 13.42 seconds and was 1.2 seconds faster than Five-time Paralympic champion Henrieta Farkasova of Slovakia.

GB officials are claiming that Knights success is Britain’s first-ever World Para skiing title and are excited by the 18 year olds prospects at next year’s Winter Paralympics in Pyeongchang.

Wild, from Bearsden in Glasgow, has been supporting Knight for the past year and following some early success, Parasnowsports GB requested he join them full time. A top skier himself, he raced for the Scottish junior development squad as well as for the royal Navy, where he is a Submariner.

Boor further honours in the Super G event on Thursday.

The pair also added a further two silver medals in the super combined and giant slalom to complete an excellent showing at the World Para Alpine Skiing Championships.

Salary: £24 – £28k

Tennis Scotland is seeking to recruit an enthusiastic and motivated Marketing and Communications Officer to lead on the marketing and communication needs of the organisation and achieve the mission and targets within the Tennis Scotland strategy.

View the detailed job description and person specification

The ideal candidate will demonstrate a track record of managing social media channels, website editing, ensuring consistent and high quality communication support for the office, tournaments and events promotion, supporting the organisation’s relationship with the press and delivering graphic design support to all staff as well as having a real passion for achieving the mission of ‘More People Playing Tennis More Often’.

For more information please see the Tennis Scotland website here.

 

World No.1 Gordon Reid begins his Australian Open men’s singles title defence against Joachim Gerard of Belgium in a rematch of last year’s final when the first wheelchair tennis Grand Slam of 2017 gets underway at Melbourne Park on Wednesday.

With four Brits on the Tennis Foundation’s Wheelchair Tennis World Class Programme lining up for the men’s, women’s and quad singles and doubles events this year in Melbourne, Alfie Hewett will make his Australian Open debut against world No.2 Stephane Houdet of France, while Lucy Shuker faces her doubles partner Marjolein Buis of the Netherlands.

The four-way quad singles round-robin begins with world No.3 Andy Lapthorne playing his doubles partner, the USA’s world No.2 David Wagner.

Reid has reached the semi-finals and final, respectively, in his first two men’s singles events of the year at the Sydney Open Super Series and the ITF 2 Melbourne Open. Most recently he finished runner-up to Gustavo Fernandez of Argentina on Saturday at the Melbourne Open. Reid bowed out against British No. 2 Hewett in the semi-finals in Sydney but then beat Hewett in the semi -finals last week.

“I had a disappointing start to this Australian trip, but managed to up my level in Melbourne in difficult conditions. So I arrive at Melbourne Park in a good place ready to defend my title ,” said Reid, who wo his first Grand Slam singles title in Melbourne 12 months ago before going on to win the inaugural men’s singles title at Wimbledon.

“It is obviously a different situation than I’ve ever been in before, coming to a Grand Slam as defending champion. But seeing the courts here brings back great memories and gets me excited to start competing here again.”

After reaching his first Super Series singles final in Sydney, having beaten Reid for the very first time, Hewett is relishing his debut at Melbourne Park against Houdet.

“It’s been a pretty positive start to 2017 for me after beating Gordon to reach my first Super Series final in Sydney and then going to three sets with him at the Melbourne Open. So after doing that against the world No.1 I’m really excited to be at the Australian Open for the first time and I’m looking for another big performance against the world No.2 on Wednesday,” said Hewett.

World No.8 Shuker is set to begin her eighth Australian Open against Buis after reaching successive women’s singles quarter-finals so far this year in which she has had close results against world No. 6 Diede de Groot and world No.2 Yui Kamiji.

“I feel like I’ve been playing some pretty good tennis out here in Australia in the first two tournaments of the year. I pushed Diede in Sydney, going to a final set tie-break, and had chances in the match against Yui in Melbourne, so I’m looking forward to my eighth Australian Open,” said Shuker.

“The last time I played here with Marjolein in doubles we made the final, so I’m looking forward to playing together again after facing each other on Wednesday.”

Lapthorne began 2017 by defeating Wagner in his very first match of the year in Sydney two weeks ago, before finishing runner-up in a four-way round robin featuring the same three players he will face this week. While Lapthorne will hope to repeat that result on Wednesday he then goes on to face Australians Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson. The top two players at the end of the round-robin will meet again in the final.

Former US Open quad singles champion Lapthorne also pairs up with Wagner in a bid to win their third Australian Open quad singles title together.  He is also a former two-time quad doubles champion in Melbourne with fellow Brit Peter Norfolk.

“I’m excited to be going after title number five in doubles, which would be very special, and looking to try and go one better than my past attempts in singles here,” said Lapthorne.

There is the possibility of two Brits being in the men’s doubles final, with Reid and Gerard set to play the Australian-Dutch combination of Ben Weekes and Maikel Scheffers in their semi-final. Hewett and Fernandez will play French top seeds Houdet and Nicolas Peifer in the other semi-final.

Shuker and Buis will take on Dutch top seeds Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot in their quest to reach a second Australian Open women’s doubles final after finishing runners-up to the same partnership in 2013.

Photo courtesy of the Tennis Foundation

Scottish Rowing is the Governing Body for rowing in Scotland.  It promotes participation in rowing by both men and women, at every age and level of ability from novice to elite.  Scottish Rowing is now seeking to appoint a Director with responsibility for Corporate Governance to join its voluntary Board of Directors.  This is an exciting opportunity for the right person to get involved in shaping the future of rowing in Scotland.

The Board meets up to eight times each year including the AGM and planning days.  The successful candidate should also expect to commit up to 2-3 hours per month for communication with the Chief Operating Officer and other staff as required.

The post is accountable to the membership of Scottish Rowing through the Board of Directors, with a direct report to the President of Scottish Rowing as required.

The term of office for this post is three years.

For more information please see the following attachments:

Director of Corporate Governance Job Description

Director Application Form

Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form

Double Paralympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist John Robertson passed away in the Borders General Hospital on 21^st December, age 75. The crematorium was packed with representatives from the Lothian Fire Service where he worked for over 40 years. Members from Tweedbank Art Club, friends and fellow Paralympians also attended in significant numbers.

John was born in Tranent and had a cycling accident in 1959 when he was 16, which left him with a spinal paralysis.  While in Edenhall Hospital he tried all sports focussing on weightlifting, archery, fencing, table tennis and shooting but later on in his exceptional sporting career he turned his attention to bowls and curling. Not surprisingly, like so many Scottish wheelchair athletes of the time, John turned his hand to basketball when the occasion arose.

For many years this very talented sportsman was a regular in the Scottish team at the National Stoke Mandeville Games. Quality Team Scotland performances led to the call up for Team GB for the International Stoke Mandeville Games. John was a Team Scotland member at the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Perth Australia in 1962, Kingston Jamaica in 1966, Edinburgh in 1970 and Dunedin New Zealand in 1974.

John met his wife Val at the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Australia and they were both called up for Team GB for their first Paralympic Games in Tokyo in 1964. Val is a member of the Scottish Disability Sport Hall of Fame and as well as Tokyo, she excelled in Israel in 1968 and Toronto in 1976. John did not make the team for Canada but he travelled in support of his wife.

By this time John and Val were fully committed to bowls and developing a strong bowls community in and around Edinburgh. Innovative bowling ramps were developed at the Thistle Foundation offering green access to participant with severe mobility challenges. John’s skills as a bowler were improving by the day as he launched himself wholeheartedly into all disciplines of the sport. John became a member of East Lothian Indoor, Portobello Indoor and Jessfield Outdoor Bowling Club. John was made an honorary member of Jessfield BC in 1996.

Selection for Team GB for the Paralympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 inevitably followed and John finished a very creditable 5^th in singles. John was then selected for the IPC World Championships in 1998 where he secured 3^rd place in pairs and 5^th in singles. John’s finest hour was the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 where he joined forces with Ivan Prior and David Heddle to win the first gold medal for Team Scotland in front of the First Minister and many other passionate Scots in torrential rain. A very special day for an amazing Scottish bowls triple.

In the history of the Scottish disability sports movement that performance by skip David Heddle from Fraserburgh, Ivan Prior from Glasgow and John Robertson was up there with the very best that our Paralympians over the years have had to offer. The hairs still rise on the back of my neck when I spot that iconic image of the three Manchester gold medallists that proudly hangs in Caledonia House. Bob Dick was the Team Scotland Bowls Manager at the time and he has many stories to tell about that gold medal match and the performances of John and the others .

Over 50 years ago a performance disability sports movement was established in Scotland that embraced a squad of exceptionally talented all round wheelchair sportsmen and women like John Robertson. Those men and women established our nation as an international force in performance disability sport and laid the foundations for the many pan disability Scottish performances that followed from 1984 onwards.

John was a powerful and eloquent man with a wonderful sense of humour.  He was also a talented musician and a leading light in a Folk Group formed by patients at Edenhall that entertained in pubs and clubs in the 60s and 70s. John and others like him fought the good fight during those early years on issues around equality and access to sporting provision.  John had a vision of inclusion in the 80s and 90s that was progressive, relevant and appropriate for our times.

John and Val settled in Melrose and continued to develop their sporting interests through wheelchair curling. John Robertson was a larger than life character who has left his mark in Scottish sport. He will be remembered as a fierce all round sportsman who took full advantage of his many talents across a wide range of activities.

SDS Vice President Jean Stone MBE attended John’s funeral along with another iconic all round Scottish sportsman of the time, John Clark. Jean was a key player in the development of the Scottish sports movement in the early years and remembers John with great fondness. “John enjoyed life to the full and always had a twinkle in his eye. In an unsettling kind of way however, you never knew what he was going to say or do next”.

I became involved with SSAD (now SDS) in 1975 and I was in awe of all those “big men” who reigned supreme in disability sport throughout the 60s and 70s. Even as they sat in their wheelchairs they appeared to tower over me. I had to win their respect and although there were only a few years between us I often had to answer to “son”. When I was first called by my first name I knew I had earned their respect. John and others taught me so much, particularly at Tulliallan training weekends. I shall always be grateful. John Robertson is a legend in Scottish sport. Athletes, coaches and volunteers who have followed on in the 70s, 80’s, 90s and beyond owe so much to John and his colleagues for laying the foundations for our great movement.

Richard Brickley MBE