Multi-Skilled Josie Ready to Scale New Heights

On a Bank Holiday Monday in May, 2003, 17-year-old Josie Stephens was involved in a horrific, head-on car crash that saw her boyfriend, who was driving, killed, and turned her from a promising, able-bodied horse rider, eventer and show jumper, into a tetraplegic, paralysed from her mid-chest downwards.

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Five years later she was the only woman in an otherwise all-male GB wheelchair rugby team that finished fourth at the Beijing Paralympics.

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This week she is in New Zealand to compete in the T52 wheelchair category in the 100, 200 and 400 metres at the IPC World Athletics Championships, second only in importance to the Paralympics which, of course, will be next staged in London in 20 months’ time.

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“I can’t say I’m happy about what happened seven years ago,” Josie says. “It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind. But I’ve subsequently had the best experiences of my life. I’m going to New Zealand expecting to medal in all three races. By London I’m hoping those medals may just be gold.”

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If you have not yet gathered, she is quite a lady.

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Five days after the crash Josie was hit with the double blow that her boyfriend had lost his life and she her mobility from her chest downwards resulting from a broken neck. Her hands and arms have been affected too, with no finger function on her right side.

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“We were going to have a fun day at Lasar Quest in Newport,” she recalls. “Midway between Hay on Wye and Newport my boyfriend misjudged an overtaking manoeuvre, clipped a car, spun and then went straight into another car. He died at the scene and I, having not been wearing my seat belt, hit the roof of the car and broke my neck. Everything was a blur for quite some time afterwards. One minute I was at county level in dressage and show jumping, and about to take my AS Level exams, the next I was spending nine months in a spinal unit in Oswestry, my life changed irrevocably.”

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But it was there that a chance meeting with a wheelchair rugby player started Josie’s long road to sporting success. “My family and friends had ensured that I didn’t get too down on myself and then the rugby player inspired me. I went to Cardiff University, joined a wheelchair rugby team in the city, then went to trials for the Paralympics and the next thing I knew I had been selected by the GB team, even though I was the only woman in the team.”

In the summer of 2008 she went to Beijing where, alongside her teammates, she claimed fourth place. “The worst place to finish because you just miss out on a medal.”

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But the experience got her thinking. Her taste of success made her want more. Much more. And her natural leaning to individual sports made her realise that athletics might be the sport for her.
Incredibly, less than one year after starting from scratch, and having finished fourth in all of the 100, 200, 400 and 800 metre races at last year’s International Wheelchair Games in Taiwan, she is emerging as the one to watch come 2012.

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“It took me a year to pluck up the courage to change sports,” Josie, who celebrates her 25th birthday tomorrow (Monday), explains. “But the change wasn’t as hard as I envisaged. I already had the fitness, the attitude and the drive, and athletics has now become all-consuming for me.”

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It helps that her coach is Peter Eriksson, the UKA’s Head Coach who formerly coached the French Canadian, Chantal Peticlerc, one of the world’s most successful Paralympians.����

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“He’s the bees’ knees when it comes to wheelchair coaching globally,” she adds. “And it says something, I guess, that he wants to coach me. We’ll see how I fare in Christchurch at the World Championships but if I can medal there, as I expect to, then winning gold medals in London is realistic because I will only get better.”

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Josie will be part of a 40-strong GB and Northern Ireland team heading south to New Zealand this week, all with their own, against adversity stories. In her case she has refused the severest of life setbacks to deter her. “I live in my own apartment in Hay on Wye, I drive my own car, and I am a full-time athlete,” she explains.

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“I’ve always had a positive outlook on life and I realised early on that you have to get on with the hand you’re dealt with. That’s what I’m doing.”

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Indeed she is. All the way to the world championships this week, and the London Paralympics in 2012.�

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Aviva has paved the way for British athletes since 1999. Go to www.aviva.co.uk/athletics

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