History People Paralympic athletes Martin Mansell Contents Early life Life as a Paralympic athlete Retirement as a Paralympic athlete Achievements and awards Oral history interview Martin Mansell PLY represented Great Britain in the 1984 and 1988 Paralympics predominantly in swimming but also in athletics, winning nine Paralympic medals in total. Martin Mansell PLY Early life Martin Mansell was born in Nottingham on 13 December 1960. He had a type of cerebral palsy called spastic diplegia, which affected his lower limbs from birth, although it was not diagnosed until he was aged two. Martin has a sister who is two years older than him and, when he was five, the family moved to Northampton due to his father’s job. His parents bought a caravan then a house in Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire on the East Coast as doctors at the time recommended sea air for his legs. In reality this was to do with the opportunity to walk and run on sand, rather than the sea air, which strengthened his legs. His dad was adamant that he would learn to swim and he loved it and found it liberating. He continued to swim recreationally with his family and competitively for a swimming club in Northampton until the age of 15. The majority of Martin’s schooling took place in special schools and it was at Fairfield School, which he attended from the age of 11, where it was first discovered that he was such a strong swimmer. In 1975 Len Softly, a single leg amputee volleyball player who set up the amputee sports association in the UK and the husband of Joan Softly one of the teachers at the school, spotted Martin and recognised his potential. Martin was towing two canoes and two people in the school pool as part of a rescue exercise at the after-school canoe club. He arranged for Martin to compete in the National Swimming Championships held in Stoke Mandeville that year. Martin carried on competing for a couple of years at regional and national swimming events and then diversified into a number of other sports such as scuba diving and canoeing using swimming as a form of fitness. He left school at this stage and became a shoe designer for two years before changing careers and retraining as a chef. He went on to work in the catering industry for 16 or 17 years eventually becoming head chef. Life as a Paralympic athlete Martin was not selected as one of the athletes with cerebral palsy to go to the Arnhem Games in 1980. So he decided to refocus on swimming as his main discipline with the 1984 Games in mind. He competed at all the regionals and nationals in that time period and some friendly internationals. He also set a world record at the International Cerebral Palsy Games in Denmark in 1982. This led to him being selected for the 1984 Paralympic Games in New York. At that time, multi sport athletes stood a better chance of being selected so he competed in athletics as well as swimming. However, swimming was his dominant sport and he won five medals in the pool in 1984 setting a new world record for backstroke. Following the 1984 Games, Martin went on to compete in the CP-ISRA European Championships in 1985 as well as the World Championships in 1986 taking 7 golds and world records on his way. He was selected once again for the Seoul 1988 Paralympics Games competing in swimming and won four medals – a gold, two silvers and a bronze. The black and white image on the left is of the Nottingham Panthers swim team, right to left: Paul Heinke, Martin Mansell and Chris Hampshire taken at the former Beechdale pool in Nottingham. The colour image is taken at the Seoul 1988 Paralympic medal ceremony left to right: Seoul representative, Martin Mansell from Great Britain, Anders Christensen from Denmark and Michael Quickert from Germany. Retirement as a Paralympic athlete Martin retired from competing following the 1988 Paralympics and became involved on the coaching side. He started by completing his coaching qualifications and coached at a local swimming club. He then went to the World Games in Assen in 1990 as part of the coaching team. Dame Sarah Storey was one of those he coached. He also changed careers and was now working in sports development. Martin was appointed as one of the first Professional Sports Development Officers for People with Disabilities within a Local Education Authority in England. He had already been elected by the British Paralympic Association (BPA) as the chair of their first athletes' commission, and in Assen in 1990 he was also elected as the chair of the first athletes’ commission of the International Paralympics Committee (IPC). Currently, Martin is an international expert and tutor in inclusive practise in physical activity and physical education. He also runs a swimming aid company (Floatsation.com) to facilitate people of all abilities and particularly those with a more severe disability to float and have freedom of movement in the water. Martin's retained his enthusiasm for developing inclusive sport and runs workshops to help people understand the barriers facing disabled people. He has worked with the Youth Sport Trust, EFDS/Activity Alliance and Sports Coach UK as a senior tutor and is now living in the highlands of Scotland and Tutoring for Scottish Disability Sport (SDS) as well as chairing the local inclusive physical activity hub. Martin is still involved with ParalympicsGB in developing their community programme and reaching out to former Paralympians. He is also working with a number of colleagues at IPC on documenting the historical development of the Paralympic Movement since 1989 up to and including the Sydney Games in 2000. Paralympic achievements and rewards Martin Mansell won three gold, five silver and one bronze Paralympic medals in swimming in 1984 and 1988. Oral history interview with Martin Mansell PLY Interview by Mark Chamberlen, 13th September 2024 Martin talks about his childhood holidays that led to his love for swimming and winning three gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Summer Games. His role as Chair of the BPA Athletes’ Commission, and coaching Sarah Storey and Sascha Kindred, and the importance of focusing on ability rather than disability. Listen to the interview below or download the transcript here. Paralympic Heritage · Play the oral history interview with Martin Mansell References 'Oral history interview with Martin Mansell' - Mark Chamberlen, National Paralympic Heritage Trust, 2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Mansell https://www.paralympic.org/martin-mansell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5IGCXhijxE https://www.buxtonadvertiser.co.uk/news/disability-talk-from-paralympics-champ-797858 https://researchandscholarship.blogspot.com/2017/08/students-train-with-paralympian.html https://paralympics.org.uk/articles/paralympicsgbs-athlete-community-reunites-team-members-from Manage Cookie Preferences