Rio 2016 Paralympics: Gold medal hope Pam Relph wants to 'close the gap' to the Olympics

Vision: Pam Relph, far right at Henley in 2012, has arthritis, which prevents her from competing at the Olympic Games
(Ben Hoskins/Getty Images)
Matt Watts30 August 2016

Paralympian Pam Relph says she wants to help take the Games in Rio to new heights and “close the gap” with the Olympics.

The rower, 26, who suffers from a form of arthritis, hopes to win her second gold medal by defending the mixed coxed four title she won at London 2012.

But she also wants to close in on the times achieved by Team GB’s Olympic rowers in their five-medal haul at Rio.

Relph was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis as a girl, which led to degeneration in her joints and caused the bones of her right wrist to fuse.

Today, she said: “It’s an incredible thing to be part of the Paralympic movement and I feel a weight of responsibility to try to push it forward. In as much as I have a disability and I’m never going to go to the Olympics, my disability is a minimal one. I want to see how close I can get and I want to merge that boundary between Paralympic athlete and able-bodied athlete.

“In terms of physiologically, the scores I pull, the weights I lift, how well I row, I think my disability will always hold me back to an extent, but there’s no reason why there needs to be that great gap in the middle between Olympic athlete and Paralympic athlete. I’m trying to break down those barriers in training every day.”

Relph dreamt of a career as a Royal Engineer but just as she was about to enlist at Sandhurst in 2011 she was medically discharged because of her arthritis. However, her sister Monica, then a member of Great Britain’s able-bodied senior women’s rowing squad, suggested Relph could use her disability to her advantage and sign up for the Paralympic team.

Relph took to the sport with the same obsessiveness with which she had chased a place in the military. She had three training sessions a day, starting at 6am, with a day off every three weeks.

Today, she is at the top of the sport, and aiming to break down the taboos surrounding disability. She trains with able-bodied athletes and competes domestically alongside able-bodied rowers. Relph said: “We don’t want to be seen as disabled athletes but as elite athletes too. It’s really great for the Paralympic movement that I can train and compete alongside people who don’t have a disability.”

She will be aiming to make 28-year-old Monica proud in Rio next week, after her sibling missed out on a place in the Team GB squad for the Olympics because of injury. Monica, who has now retired from the sport, will be in Rio with other relatives to cheer her on.

Relph, who was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, also tipped the rowing squad to have its best performance yet at a Paralympic Games. Her boat was the only one to claim a medal in 2012. She said: “I feel really confident that our squad is in a really good place. Speaking from the para-rowing squad and from Team GB as a whole, we are most definitely the strongest team I’ve ever been part of.”

Relph spoke to the Standard as she kick started a campaign which will see donations from P&G products sold at Sainsbury’s go towards helping raise money for the British Paralympic Association.

One P&G product equals one donation, exclusively at Sainsbury’s until September 20. Check stores for more information.

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