PARIS — Paralympic medals are getting harder to win and Great Britain will call on a panoply of talent in order to do so.

UK Sport and the National Lottery invest £68m in a Paralympic world-class programme that gives athletes with disabilities all of the tools they need to excel.

The investment in para sport is unmatched but the rest of the world is catching up, meaning the fight will be fierce across each of the 549 medal events – 200 more than the Olympics.

Here are 15 who will like their chances of getting their hands on some hardware and bring incredible stories to the table too.

Sammi Kinghorn – athletics

Wheelchair racing has been dominated by Hannah Cockroft and David Weir in the last decade but now it’s time to get to know Kinghorn, an athlete who has all of the tools to use Paris to become a household name.

The Scot, who was paralysed from the waist down in an accident on her family farm aged 14, has turbocharged her career since collecting silver and bronze in Tokyo.

Kinghorn’s range is phenomenal. She is a world champion in the 100m sprint and holds the world record over 1500m, heading to the Games with up to four gold medal chances.

Sabrina Fortune – athletics

There are worse ways to prepare for the Paralympics than improving your own world record.

That is exactly what Fortune did when she threw the shot put 14.30 metres in June, meaning she will arrive at the Games brimming with confidence.

The Welsh star struggled in Tokyo, finishing fifth after bronze in Rio, and could not be better placed to ensure her third Paralympic experience is the best yet.

Daniel Bethell – badminton

Bethell comes from a multi-sport background that included tries at tennis, football and cricket, but everyone in the badminton world is delighted that he chose their sport.

The Huntingdon native won all of the 21 games he played in 2022, won four international titles and became world number one – not bad going, you would suggest .

Bethell won ParalympicsGB’s first-ever badminton medal with silver in Tokyo and will be spoiling for an upgrade three years later.

Charlotte Henshaw – canoeing

Henshaw went to two Paralympics as a swimmer and her transition to canoeing has gone almost as smoothly as the path she cuts through the water, winning eight world titles.

But, in 2022, Henshaw was diagnosed with the incurable condition endometriosis in which tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows elsewhere in the body, causing severe pain and other complications.

The 37-year-old has shown remarkable resilience to make it to Paris and continue to stay at the very top of her game.

Sophie Unwin – cycling

Unwin had just been made redundant from her supermarket job when she took her chances on a British Cycling talent day in August 2020 – less than a year later she had two Paralympic medals to her name.

The Devonian, who is visually impaired, has struck up a world-beating partnership with sighted pilot Jenny Holl and the pair were crowned triple world champions in Glasgow last year, the first time that Olympic and Paralympic programmes were combined.

Claire Cashmore – triathlon

Cashmore began her Paralympic career as a swimmer but it is in para triathlon that she goes to her eighth Games in Paris.

At Tokyo 2020, Cashmore came away with PTS5 bronze behind teammate Lauren Steadman who clinched gold, but it was Cashmore who took home the world title later that year in what has become a brilliant domestic rivalry.

With nine Paralympic medals already to her name, Cashmore enters Paris undefeated in 2024 and top of the para triathlon world rankings.

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Lauren Rowles – rowing

Rowles is poised to become the first woman to win three Paralympic gold medals in rowing.

Having won gold as a teenager at Rio 2016, the 26-year-old has battled adversity to become a dominant force and the first in her discipline to hold Paralympic, World and European titles.

With a brilliant new rowing partner in former Commando Gregg Stevenson and now a mother to newborn son Noah, Rowles has no shortage of motivation to make history.

Maisie Summers-Newton – swimming

Summers-Newton has dealt remarkably well with being installed as one of the faces of British swimming as a teenager.

Now, 22, the Northampton-born star has just graduated as a teacher and still doling out lessons to her rivals in the pool.

She did a golden double in the 100m breaststroke and 200m individual medley at the Tokyo Paralympics and the last two World Championships and will hope for more of the same at La Defense Arena.

Amy Truesdale – taekwondo

Chester-born Truesdale has plenty of strings to her bow – coaching, modelling and dancing to name but three.

She is no slouch at taekwondo, either, a triple world champion, quadruple European champion and a pioneer in her sport.

Truesdale has a point to prove after settling for bronze at the first edition of Paralympic taekwondo in Tokyo and it seems will shake on nothing less than gold at the second.

Piers Gilliver – wheelchair fencing

In early 2023, Gilliver was lying in a darkened room for weeks on end battling vicious symptoms of concussion having sustained a serious blow to the head in training.

He leant on the support of those around him, including girlfriend Valeriia Abdualimova, a Ukrainian former wheelchair fencer, and remarkably was crowned epee world champion later that year.

Gilliver made history with epee victory in Tokyo, ParalympicsGB’s first gold medal in the sport in 34 years, but a medal of any colour in Paris would arguably be an even greater achievement.

Alfie Hewett – wheelchair tennis

Hewett, who has Perthes disease, was a soul in torment in Tokyo when it appeared the classification system would rule him as “not disabled enough.”

Thankfully, that has not come to pass on Hewett will compete at his third Paralympics on the back of an otherworldly two years.

In 2023, he won five Grand Slam titles across singles and doubles and became the first wheelchair player to be named Player of the Year by the British Tennis Journalists’ Association.

Dave Ellis – triathlon

Ellis will finally be looking to break his Paralympic curse at Paris 2024 after a bike chain failure ended his dreams of gold three years ago.

Originally starting out his para sport journey as a swimmer at Beijing 2008, Ellis made the switch to para triathlon in 2013 and has won just about every medal there is in the sport, including a 10 straight gold medal run post-Tokyo.

With the male VI category not included at Rio 2016 and mechanical issues playing havoc at Tokyo 2020, Ellis turns up to the French capital chasing his first Paralympic title in the event.

William Ellard – swimming

After winning three medals on his senior international debut, Ellard’s rise to the top of the swimming world has been fast and furious.

The F1-mad athlete clinched three world championship medals, four European championship medals and two world records in the 12-months leading up to Paris 2024.

Ellard equalled the S14 200m freestyle world record on the final night of the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships before setting a new standard in the S14 100m freestyle at the Citi Para Swimming World Series in Berlin and heads into Paris in blazing form.

Nathan Macqueen – archery

Macqueen played rugby for Glasgow Warriors U18s before a motorcycle accident aged 17 brought him back onto the archery range.

He made his Paralympic debut at Rio 2016, reaching the second round before repeating the same feat at Tokyo 2020.

Since then, Macqueen graced the top of the rankings in 2023 as a world silver medallist and became a double European champion in the men’s individual and team compound to elevate his medal chances once more at a third Games.

Claire Taggart – boccia

At Rio 2016, Taggart made history as the first person from Northern Ireland to compete in the sport of boccia at the Paralympics.

Taggart saw a roaring rise in the sport in the past few years, storming to 2022 World Championship gold in the venue she first made her Paralympic debut and holding the title of world number one for the entirety of 2023.

The boccia player, who also owns six tortoises and two bearded dragons, is now targeting her first Paralympic medal at her third Games in Paris.

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