Continuing our Passion for Paralympics

Earlier this year, the 17th Summer Paralympic Games took place in Paris and after the challenges of a Covid entangled Toyko at the previous games, all the athletes were relishing the thought of competing on the grand stage in front of their family and friends.

With the slogan “Games wide open” the Paris 2024 Committee chose a strong claim to represent both, the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2024 in France. “It is an invitation to the world to come and experience emotions together. Our Games are the commitments of new experiences and big thrills,” said the organising committee. During the games, a total of 549 different competitions in 22 sports were held in exceptional venues all over Paris.

Supporting our patients in their quest for glory

We were proud to support so many athletes on their Road to Paris and many of them realised lifelong dreams and achieved new heights, bringing home Paralympic medals.

Hannah Moore

Hannah has been a patient at Dorset Orthopaedic since 2016 and has had an eventful eight years. Having found triathlon after her amputation, Hannah quickly developed a passion for the sport. She has pushed through multiple setbacks and crushing disappointments to earn her place in the Paralympics in Paris. This was her opportunity to show everyone she was back and ready to compete. Hannah is a five-time British Champion, two-time World Champion, European Champion and now Paralympic bronze medallist after making her Paralympics debut in Paris in the women’s PTS4 Para triathlon event.

Amy Conroy

Amy is an experienced member of the Wheelchair Basketball squad and has been a patient at Dorset Orthopaedic for the past 3 years. Paris was Amy’s 4th Paralympic Games and along with her teammates, battled hard to achieve greatness. After a gruelling competition they lost an extremely close encounter in the quarter finals against the USA. Amy’s passion for the sport grows with each passing year and no doubt we’ll see her compete in LA 2028.

Ben Watson

Ben is a Paralympic gold medal winner and competes in Para-Cycling Time Trials and Road Races. Just five years since he began Cycling after being inspired by the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Ben won two gold medals at Tokyo 2020 in the Time Trial C3 and the Road Race C1-C3.

Ben finished 5th in Paris but after helping teammate Fin Graham to road race gold on the streets of Paris, Watson admitted that he could only marvel at how much the sport has improved in such a short period of time.

Fin Graham

Having enjoyed mountain biking in his early teenage years, Graham switched his focus and caught the attention of British Cycling’s para-cycling programme in 2016. After a long hard training schedule to get him to Paris, it was Paralympic gold at last for Fin Graham who recovered from the agony of his silver in the men’s road race in Tokyo to win a commanding gold in the men’s C1-3 road race. The Brit added to his gold with a silver in the men’s C3 3000m individual pursuit.

Jaco Van Gass

A phenomenal performance in Paris resulted in Jaco van Gass not only achieving individual success in the Men’s C3 3,000m individual pursuit, but also saw him maintain the team sprint title alongside Kadeena Cox and Jody Cundy. Jaco has worked closely with Dorset Orthopaedic over the last few years to find solutions to help improve in his sport and its amazing to see all his hard work pay off.

Fran Brown

Dorset Orthopaedic patient Fran Brown secured a superb silver medal on her Paralympic debut at Paris 2024 in the Women’s C1-3 road cycling time trial.

Para cyclist and triathlete Fran Brown is a latecomer to two-wheeled sport but since first racing a bike in 2016, the Cornwall native has collected a host of World titles.

On the Mic with Milly Pickles & Billy Monger

On top of having all of these supported athletes compete, two of our awesome young patients, Milly Pickles and Billy Monger were recruited by Channel 4 to join the broadcast team. During the 11 days of competition, the inspirational pair were on hand to interview the competitors and capture those historic Paralympic moments. One particularly special moment came when Billy interviewed Hannah Moore after her bronze medal finish in Para-triathlon PTS4 Event.

Having met 7 years ago at the Arctic one triathlon, after competing in Dorset Orthopaedic teams, its poetic that the 2 would reconnect on the finish line at the Paralympic Games. These special moments reinforce our commitment to our patients and to the communities we serve.

Overall, Paris was a special games and to play a part in helping these patients achieve their well-deserved success is truly special. Our ‘Passion for Paralympics’ is stronger than ever, and we look forward to the Paralympics in LA 2028.