What kind of athlete bbc

Blind and partially sighted runners can compete with a guide. Usually tethered to the athlete by a rope, a guide runs with them, acting as their eyes. Clegg, who runs the m and m, maintains contact with her guide Mikail Huggins, using a loop of physiotherapy tubing, bound in the middle with electrical tape. She described the process of running with a guide as, "a bit like doing the three-legged race but attached by your hands rather than your feet".

The guide talks throughout the race, explaining to the athlete where they are on the track, flagging up bends and making a call on whether or not the athlete should accelerate, hold the pace or relax. They are allocated a lane each. The totally blind runners, T11 class, will always have a guide, but those categorised as T12 - who have some sight - can choose. Most blind or visually impaired female runners partner with male guides, as the guide must have the ability to go faster than the athlete.

The golden rule of guide running is not to cross the line before the athlete, a crime punishable by disqualification. Both Clegg and Hinton have lost out on past medals when their guide unintentionally pipped them to the post. Blind athletes competing in the long jump and triple jump also use guides, though here they stay stationary, shouting commands, clapping and directing athletes through the jump. Viewers new to the Paralympics may notice there are a number of athletes who excel in their field despite being a little older than you might expect sportsmen and women to be.

At Wimbledon this year, commentators were questioning how long Roger Federer could continue at champion level being as he was then the ripe old age of Norfolk won gold in Athens and Beijing, is presently ranked third in the world and will be the flag bearer for ParalympicsGB at the opening ceremony. Much was made of older Olympians as well this year. Hiroshi Hoketsu competed in the dressage at Gymnast Yordan Yovchev, 39, finished seventh in the final of the men's rings.

Yamile Aldama, 40, competed for Team GB in the triple jump. In sports like equestrianism and shooting there are plenty of competitors over the age of But the effect is more pronounced in the Paralympics. GB blind football captain David Clarke is 41, boccia's Nigel Murray is 48, archer Kate Murray 63, discus thrower Derek Derenalagi is in his first Paralympics at 38 and the athletics captain and runner Tracey Hinton is Athletes may have excelled later than their non-disabled counterparts as a result of choosing to use sport as part of their rehabilitation after acquiring a disability, like Afghanistan veteran Derenalagi.

Other reasons are a little more complicated. The pool of disabled athletes is smaller than that of the Olympics due to lack of opportunity - be that about physical access to sporting facilities or lack of imagination from PE teachers or those supporting disabled people in their development.

Self-esteem or simple lack of hands-on experience might mean it never really enters the minds of many who could be extremely capable if supported. Head of the British Paralympic Association Tim Hollingsworth acknowledges the age differences and says: "The routes into the sport for new athletes are more varied and less predictable than those who've been doing nothing but their sport until this age.

Hollingsworth hopes that the Games will inspire disabled people, non-disabled PE teachers and those in charge to appreciate the possibilities out there. Hollingsworth is keen to point to a general diversity of age in the GB squad.

At the other end of the scale we have wheelchair fencer Gabi Down at 14, sitting volleyball's Julie Rogers at 13 and swimmers Chloe Davies, 13, and Amy Marren, Paralympic athletes are subject to the same list of banned substances as Olympic athletes. Anyone who requires additional medication for pain or treatment must apply for an exemption. Each application will be considered on an individual basis by a medical committee.

The same goes for Olympic athletes. But mostly it is the same as the Olympics - things like asthma and diabetes. Find the best ways to fuel your training with our guides on what to eat during your run , what to eat during a swim and what to eat during cycling.

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Christine Ohuruogu won a silver medal in the metres at the London Olympics in Middle distance athlete Lisa Dobriskey came away with a silver medal during her Olympic debut in Here Lisa shares a love of chocolate, the benefits of ostrich steak and her tips for staying on top.

Eat like Lisa Dobriskey. Olympic legend Sally Gunnell broke numerous records during her athletics career and is now one of the best-loved names in British sport. We asked Sally to divulge her training diet, guilty food pleasures and top tips for aspiring athletes… Eat like Sally Gunnell. What does an Olympic heroine eat for breakfast? We caught up with Jessica Ennis-Hill to find out what her daily diet looks like, her top tips for the amateur athlete and how she rewards herself when competition season is over… Eat like Jessica Ennis-Hill.

The Brownlee brothers are unstoppable champions who have been steadily amassing a horde of Olympic, Commonwealth and Triathlon medals. So what do legends of the road, bike and water eat to stay on top? Eat like Jonathan and Alistair Brownlee. So what does a multi-sport, professional athlete eat to keep herself fighting fit?

Less common is blood doping, where blood is removed from the body and injected back in later to boost oxygen levels. This practice, which can lead to kidney and heart failure, is banned. Glucocorticoids mask serious injury because they are anti-inflammatories and affect the metabolism of carbohydrates, fat and proteins, and regulate glycogen and blood pressure levels.

Beta blockers, meanwhile, which may be prescribed for heart attack prevention and high blood pressure, are banned in sports such as archery and shooting because they keep the heart-rate low and reduce trembling in the hands.

A full list of banned substances in athletics can be found on the IAAF website. Most testing for doping products uses a long-established technique called mass spectrometry. This involves firing a beam of electrons at urine samples to ionise them - turning the atoms into charged particles by adding or removing electrons. Each substance the sample contains has a unique "fingerprint" and as the scientists already know the weight of many steroids, for example, they are able to rapidly detect doping.

But there are difficulties with the system. Some by-products of doping substances are so small they may not produce a strong enough signal for detection. Blood testing is capable of detecting EPO and synthetic oxygen carriers, but not blood transfusions.

One method introduced to aid the detection of such transfusions is the biological passport. Brought in by Wada in , the passport aims to reveal the effects of doping rather than detect the substance or method itself.

It is an electronic document about an athlete that contains certain markers from throughout their career. If these change dramatically, it alerts officials that the athlete might be doping.

Some scientists have questioned the passport's efficiency - especially when complicating factors such as training at altitude are factored in - but also its sensitivity to micro-dosing, a little-but-often approach to doping. Prior to Armstrong's confession, Ben Johnson was probably the world's highest-profile drugs cheat. The Canadian sprinter tested positive for anabolic steroids at the Olympic Games in Seoul. Johnson had won the m in a world record of 9.