Tag: High performance

A photo of Gordon Reid playing Wheelchair Tennis at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, he is wearing his ParalympicsGB kit

Hall of Fame inductees 2026

Scottish Disability Sport (SDS), is delighted to announce that Gordon Reid OBE, Samantha Kinghorn OBE, and Stephen McGuire MBE have been inducted into the SDS Hall of Fame.

On Saturday 19th September, SDS’s Branch Conference, Annual General Meeting and Awards took place. The day provided SDS, its member branches, partners and stakeholders an opportunity to reflect on a year of Para Sport, whilst also celebrating some of Scotland’s greatest Para Athletes, who were being inducted into SDS’s Hall of Fame.

 

The Hall of Fame aims to celebrate the sporting careers and achievements of some of Scotland’s most iconic sports men and women with disabilities. Serving as a lasting tribute to the great Scottish champions, it reflects the sporting journeys of those who have contributed to the development and reputation of disability sport within Scotland, the UK and around the world.

 

Hall of Fame inductees 2026:

 

Hailing from Alexandria in West Dunbartonshire, Gordon Reid OBE is being inducted into the SDS Hall of Fame, after an incredible career in wheelchair tennis. Gordon has produced some of his most memorable performances when pressure was at its highest, securing his status as a Paralympic champion, Grand Slam winner and world number one in both singles and doubles.

A keen athlete as a child, Gordon contracted transverse myelitis at the age of twelve, a rare neurological condition which left him paralysed from the waist down. Determined to continue in sport, he was introduced to wheelchair tennis in 2005 and quickly rediscovered the game he loved.

Gordon made his Paralympic debut at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games aged only 16-years-old, going on to reach the quarter-finals in both singles and doubles at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Gordon’s 2016 season was career defining, winning his first Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open, followed by the inaugural men’s wheelchair singles title at Wimbledon, where he also won the doubles title. At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Paralympic Games he became ParalympicsGB’s first men’s wheelchair tennis singles gold medallist, adding silver with long time doubles partner Alfie Hewett in the men’s doubles competition.

At the delayed 2020 Tokyo Summer Paralympic Games, Gordon added bronze in the men’s singles and silver in the men’s doubles with Alfie Hewett. Three years later, at the Paris 2024 Games, the duo won men’s doubles gold, giving Gordon a second Paralympic gold medal, confirming his place among the most decorated wheelchair tennis players of his era.

Awarded an MBE in 2017 and an OBE in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to wheelchair tennis, Gordon Reid OBE remains an outstanding ambassador for Scottish Disability Sport, British tennis and the Paralympic movement.

Born in the Scottish Borders, Samantha Kinghorn OBE has become a Paralympic Champion, World Champion and Commonwealth Games medallist whose achievements have placed her among the leading wheelchair racers of her generation.

As a teenager Samantha’s life changed dramatically, following an accident on her family farm. During her rehabilitation she was introduced to wheelchair sport, and quickly discovered the speed, freedom and challenge of wheelchair racing.

In 2014 Samantha won three gold medals for Great Britain at the IPC European Championships in Swansea, taking the T53 titles over 100 metres, 400 metres and 800 metres. The same year she represented Team Scotland at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, announcing herself as a major Scottish talent.

Making her Paralympic debut at the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games in 2016, she gained valuable experience. She produced a breakthrough performance the following year at the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London, winning gold in both the T53 100 metres and 200 metres and adding bronze in the 400 metres.

At the delayed Tokyo 2020 Summer Paralympic Games, Samantha won her first Paralympic medals, taking bronze in the T53 100 metres and silver in the T53 400 metres. At the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in Paris, she returned to the top of the podium, winning T53 100 metres gold, adding silver medals in the 400 metres and 800 metres.

Paris 2024 became the defining Games of Samantha’s career, winning gold in the T53 100 metres and four silver medals in the T53 400 metres, T53 800 metres, T54 1,500 metres and 4×100 metres Universal Relay.

Her achievements across Paralympic, World, European and Commonwealth competitions make her one of Scotland’s most decorated Para athletes.

Stephen McGuire MBE is one of Britain’s leading boccia athletes. From Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Stephen has built an outstanding international career.

Born with muscular dystrophy, Stephen found in boccia a sport that matched his competitive drive and strategic mind.

Stephen’s early international success came alongside his brother Peter in the BC4 pairs event. The brothers won European gold in 2009 and World Championship silver in 2010, going on to make their Paralympic debut at London 2012.

Over the next decade Stephen became the benchmark British BC4 athlete, competing at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2020 Tokyo Summer Paralympic Games, becoming individual BC4 World Champion at the 2016 World Championships in Beijing.

Stephen’s journey to the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games showed his resilience, suffering a serious injury in 2022, breaking his knee and femur, requiring major surgery. Returning to international competitions winning BC4 Individual bronze, and BC4 Pairs silver with Fiona Muirhead at the 2023 European Para Championships.

Being selected late for Paris 2024 after earning a bipartite slot, Stephen seized his opportunity at his fourth Paralympic Games, defeating Colombia’s Edilson Chica Chica 8–5 in the men’s individual BC4 final to win his first Paralympic medal and become Paralympic champion.

Stephen went on to win double gold at the 2025 European Championships, taking the individual title and the BC4 pairs title with Sophie Newnham, before securing the BC4 Pairs title at the 2026 World Championships in Seoul, with Sophie.

Awarded an MBE in the 2024 New Year Honours, Stephen McGuire MBE is a more than worthy inductee into SDS’s Hall of Fame.

A Light purple photo with a green border. Text in the middle says Boccia Coaching Futures. The SDS logo is top centred. A white pictogram of a wheelchair user playing boccia is bottom centred.

The Boccia Coaching Futures Leading By Example

By William Moncrieff, Communications Officer.

 

Over the past four years, Scottish Disability Sport (SDS) and sportscotland have been embarking on an exciting opportunity for boccia players with high performance experience to join the SDS Performance coaching team on a volunteer coaching apprenticeship.

This opportunity has been made possible through sportscotland’s Coaching Futures programme, which aims to increase the pool of home-grown world class coaches, whilst retaining sports-specific knowledge within Scottish sport.

The Boccia coaching Futures Programme had a cohort of three former players; Peter McGuire and brothers, Scott and Jamie McCowan. All of which have competed nationally and internationally, representing Great Britain and Paralympics GB.

The programme has provided the group with many great opportunities to learn and develop. All of the coaches from the programme have had different highlights. Peter explained that: “A great highlight has been working with the likes of Kayleigh (Kayleigh Brown) and Alex (Alex Medley), where we are helping them to progress to that top level.”

Whereas Scott has enjoyed working closely with Lesley McKenna, part of sportscotland’s Coach Development team. Scott said: “The biggest highlight for me has to be working with Lesley our coach mentor and just having her to bounce ideas off of.”

Jamie added, “I would second that, working with Lesley has been a highlight. I think it is one thing to have good experience and to develop that on the job but to have that outside voice to give you feedback or to ask the right questions in order to get the right answers out of yourself has been very important.”

All of the coaches were interested in joining the programme for different reasons. “I was coaching for a few years before the programme started. What really drew me to the programme was the opportunity to set up a high-performance ecosystem in Scotland for boccia athletes, which is being delivered by current and former boccia athletes”, Peter explained.

Although Scott and Jamie were still part of Boccia UK’s World Class Programme and were both performing at a high level when they joined the programme, the pair decided to retire from performing towards the end of 2022 in order to focus on developing their coaching. “I just want to pass on knowledge and help create more Paralympians and successful athletes from Scotland”, said Jamie.

Throughout their time on the programme, they’ve all learnt a great lot. “I said at the beginning that I wanted to gain confidence. I would say that throughout the programme I can fully trust myself as a coach”, said Scott.

The endless search for perfection is a curious thing and has been a particular element that Peter has enjoyed delving into. This has been highlighted through the opportunities the coaches have had to meet, connect and network with other high-performance coaches from other sports throughout Scotland. “It can be humbling, going to speak to experts from different fields. The thing that this has highlighted is that they are experts in their fields but they don’t know everything. They are always looking to evolve and learn”, the Hamilton born coach explained.

Whereas one of Jamie’s most valuable lessons has been learning to have confidence in what is important to him and understanding to trust his coaching philosophy.

“It can take you a while to find but everyone has their own unique style of coaching. Ultimately, we all have a set style or a set philosophy, obviously that develops and that changes but fundamentally you must have confidence in what you bring and what is important to you”, Jamie said.

Scott explained how having experienced the trials and tribulations of being a high performance athlete has helped him support up-and-coming players. “I think whether you have been a competitor or a coach who hasn’t competed doesn’t make you a great coach, I think it can certainly help in the sense that you can really relate with what they (the athletes) are going through”, he said.

Lesley McKenna has had the opportunity to work closely with all of the coaches on the programm. She commented, “I am super proud of all of the coaches. They have all come such a long way.”

Lesley continued to say: “I am really starting to see how they are bringing themselves into their coaching practices, and how in doing that they are able to work collaboratively together to develop plans, to organise, to come up with new ideas and deliver coaching within the Scottish programme and then being able to take that to the Boccia UK programme.”

With the programme set to come to a close soon, the current cohort is looking at what their next steps in the sport may be.

Scott said, “My aspirations now that the programme is coming to an end are the same as they were at the beginning. I want to coach boccia and work with people that enjoy the sport. I want to develop and progress and ultimately, I want to work with players that want to compete.”

Although the programme is coming to an end, all involved throughout its implementation are keen that it sets a precedent for future coach development opportunities in Scotland. “I am keen that this is one of the first examples of a long-term programme with a group of coaches with a coach developer in Scotland, we are really leading by example”, said Lesley.

“Boccia hasn’t had a history of athletes becoming coaches, for whatever reason we haven’t had many examples of that over the years. For me it’s quite important. If we can be the start of a movement where we are showing players within the sport that there is a route into the sport, if that happens, I would be proud of that”, said Jamie.

If you would be interested in finding out more about boccia opportunities in your local area, you can do so by reaching out to your Regional Development Manager or alternatively, SDS’s Boccia Development Officer, Jonathan Kennedy, at: jonathan.kennedy@scottishdisabilitysport.com.

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