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A famous Island sailor is hoping to give something back to a yacht club that helped him achieve Olympic success.
Andy Cassell who won Gold in the Paralympics in Atlanta '96, has plans to create a Paralympic training base at the Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club. The club helped Andy raise the money that was needed to get himself and the rest of his crew to the games in 1996.
Andy has seen the sport change so much in the last years, and thinks that in many aspects the Paralympic Games prove more of a challenge for the athletes.
‘If you have a disability sometimes you have to get up in the morning and get yourself out of bed and you’re paralyzed from the waist down and things like this and it’s just not easy for a start and then you have the battle of being a Paralympian. Which is another step to take in your life, so in some ways being a Paralympian is harder than being an able bodied Olympian,” he told IW Radio.
The aim for Andy and his partners is that they will have a set of sailors who will be ready for the 2016 games in Rio.
You can listen to Andy talking about his hopes for the Paralympic training academy in Cowes above.
