Yamamoto  Atsushi (T42) Japan

He won a gold medal in Long Jump at 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon.

Undoubtedly, Yamamoto he is one of the top Japanese amputee athletes and is expected to be a serious contender as a medallist for Rio 2016.

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Kardo Ploomipuu (S10) Estonia)

Kardo started swimming at the age of 12. At first, he wasn’t that interested in swimming but luckily he decided to give it try and actually found the sport to be really exciting and enjoyable.

Kardo made his international debut in 2002 in Berlin and since then he’s had a very successful swimming career, having participated in three Paralympic Games (won pronze in Beijing 2008 in 100m backstroke) and several international championships.

Today, Kardo holds the European record for 100m and 50m backstroke. 

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Scotland has two young race runners, Gavin Drysdale and Kayleigh Haggo, who are significantly helping to develop the sport of Race Running both nationally and internationally. Race Running is a relatively new international disability sport in which children and adults compete with running bikes on an athletics track

What makes their achievements even more exceptional are their ages, Kayleigh is 14 years old and Gavin is 12. Both Gavin and Kayleigh have Cerebral Palsy, are mature beyond their years and Gavin is likely to be the youngest competitor at this year’s Games. Both are able to compete due to temporary age dispensation given to the developing sport of Race Running. Kayleigh is a multi-talented athlete who also competes at a high level in Swimming and Club Throw.

Both athletes competed at the last IWAS Games in Sharjah 2011. Between them they won all 8 Race Running Gold Medals, four each.. The highlights would be both winning 3 gold each at the European Paralympic Youth Games in Brno 2012,

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Mindaugas Bilius  and Ramune Adomaitiene  will  both be competing in field events for Lithuania in Stadskanaal.

Mindaugas who won gold in the F37 Discus and Shot Putt events at the IPC European Championships here last year will be hoping to repeat his success. Ramune will compete in the F38 Javelin, Shot Putt and Long Jump events and will be hoping to add further gold medals and world records to her impressive collection.

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Tony Garrett  IWASF Press Reporter