Recent Speaker from the Paralympics

We had a very interesting speaker at a recent meeting by one of our member’s granddaughters, Jess Flint. She is currently the Senior Athlete Support Coordinator (Paralympic) at UK Athletics and called her talk ‘Behind the scenes of winning gold at the Paralympic games”. Jess was at Loughborough University where she joined the Paralympic Programme Team based in Loughborough. Her job covers lots of detailed forward planning and travel, sometimes looking up to 8 years ahead. She explained how the large team of which she is a part, is represented by the large area of an Iceberg under the sea, supporting the athletes represented by the small area above the water. Jess touched on the high cost of this support and how the funding was maintained and also explained how Great Britain has become a template for other countries in Paralympics.