Do you have Paralympic Potential?

Spotlight on Paralympic Potential Days

Paralympic Potential Days (PPDs) are national high profile talent identification events aimed at unearthing potential talent whose development can be fast tracked for the London 2012 Paralympic Games and beyond.

Please read through all the information below before applying to a PPD.

Potentially talented individuals are invited to attend each PPD after submitting a Talent Screening Questionnaire, which can be found on the right hand side of this page.

The selection criterion for each event is;

have an impairment
UK Passport holder (or eligible for one)
aged 13 to 38
involvement in regular physical activity
a competitive nature with a desire to medal at the Paralympic Games

The days are also aimed at providing a chance for the Paralympic sports to showcase their events in order to raise awareness of opportunities at the Paralympics.

The event itself is a full day involving sports trials. Most trials are tests of skill assessed through observation by expert coaches, but some may involve assessments of speed, strength and endurance.

A wide variety of Paralympic sports will be present on the day and we would encourage participants to try as many as they are eligible for and available to them (dependent on disability and classification). At past events some attendees who turn up with just one sport in mind and have tried other sports on the day have been identified as potentially talented in that other sport - so if invited to attend, come along with an open mind and try all the sports on offer to you.

Please note that not all sports will be present on the day. Some sports (e.g swimming, cycling, rowing, powerlifting) select which applicants that they would like to see based on profile. Individuals selected for these sports will be notified prior to the day and only these applicants will have the opportunity to trial these sports

Successful applicants selected to attend a Paralympic Potential Day will be notified by e-mail within 10 days of the event itself.

Due to the volume of applications we will only be contacting successful applicants. If you do not receive any communication from ParalympicsGB you should assume that you have been unsuccessful in your application.

At the end of the process we hope that both unsuccessful applicants and attendees not selected by a sport will continue to participate in sport at a local level, utilising Parasport to provide information on local disability sport clubs.

If you have a general enquiry about Paralympic sports, local clubs or classification please log onto www.parasport.org.uk

The next Paralympic Potential Day will take place at Ponds Forge, Sheffield on Wednesday, 10 November 2010.

If you think you have what it takes, please complete the talent screening form on the right hand side of this page and email to us at talentscreening@paralympics.org.uk before Friday 22 October 2010.