Fencer Craig McCann goes for Paralympics glory on Saturday. He tells STEVE CARROLL how he has been inspired by the London Games.

IF the roar which greeted Great Britain’s Paralympics athletes as they entered the Olympic Stadium made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, imagine how it felt for wheelchair fencer Craig McCann.

As one of the heroes, as David Bowie’s cult classic blared out over the public address system, the 28-year-old was lost for words in the cacophony of sound and ticker tape that welcomed the medal hopefuls to the start of competition.

“We were stood in the tunnel – all there as a squad – and we could see people peering over the edges of the balconies,” he reveals. “You could start to hear the noise and we were all in high spirits.

“Then we were given the order to march out and there was this huge cheer. We started walking forwards and I was half-way round the track before I realised exactly what was going on. It took me ages. It was incredible. I don’t really know how to properly describe it and it was the best thing I have ever done in my life.”

McCann, who will be one of the stars of the fencing team event at London’s ExCeL on Saturday, had been hoping he and his GB colleagues would receive the same support experienced by his able-bodied colleagues at the Olympics.

But even he has been stunned, and inspired, by the reaction of the country to the Paralympics. Even if that means he has had to prepare a little harder to take account of the increased volume he will hear from a pumped up audience when it is his turn to fight.

“It inspires you,” McCann declares. “The noise level is something I have been quite anxious about. I’ve never competed in it before and, although we’ve tried to do it in preparation, it is one of those things that you can’t do justice.

“But when I was walking around the track, everywhere I was looking people were flying Union Jacks and that gives me a lot of pride and strong determination. It is going to end up helping. It’s completely unbelievable.

“I was watching the Olympics thinking it was amazing that the crowd got that much behind the participants. I hoped it would carry on in the same way but I didn’t expect it to be anywhere near the level it is.

“The public are so much behind us. It just shows that the public have started to accept us as elite athletes. They have taken us for ourselves and that’s fantastic. Our event sold out weeks ago and that put a smile on my face.

“There will be 8,000 people in the ExCeL and they are there because they bought tickets.”

It has been a long wait for the one-time York law student. After the excitement of the opening ceremony, he and his fellow fencers have had to show patience, while medals are awarded to his fellow competitors.

That waiting is nearly over.

“In one sense I would rather have been getting into the action earlier,” McCann says. “I have been training six days a week for a couple of years and it is a little unnerving (to wait). I’m ready for it and I just want to get on and do it.”

The wheelchair fencing team event sees three fencers fight each of the opposing team over a series of nine three-minute bouts. The aim is to accumulate a total of 45 hits to win the match and each bout stops when a competitor reaches the next multiple of five points or time runs out. It can be a battle of the mind, as well as agility.

“Your performance is different depending on the score on the board,” McCann explains. “It can be quite tactical as well as putting yourself 100 per cent in the battle. It’s important that we are always in the lead and that is something we have been working on.

“If you are behind, you have to take a more attacking approach. If you are in the lead, you could defend that lead and know you are going to win the match at the end. We simply have to get as many hits as we can.

“When you are in front you can make sure of the shots you take. When you are behind, you have to be very attacking and very fast.”

A definite starter for Team GB, compared, for example, with relay squads in athletics where a team is picked from a group of selected athletes, the certainty of Paralympics action has been a boost for confidence and performance.

Having only taken up the sport seriously a year-and-a-half ago, after initially attending a ‘Paralympics Potential’ session as a rowing enthusiast, McCann, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour at just 19 following an RAF medical, is determined to enjoy his home games and believes the experience will hold him in good stead ahead of his desire to book a berth in the individual competition in Rio in four years time.

He says: “I know that every time I pick up my sword I am working to make myself the best I can be. I am not doing it to say I am trying to be the man to be picked. It’s something I can carry forward to boost my own performance.

“It’s the best part of 18 months since I really decided to do it. At that stage, if I was going to be able to go to London it would be magnificent and it has been a journey over the past couple of years.

“I knew getting an individual spot would be nigh on impossible but I also always knew the team event would be in my reach. The way I have planned my training is to focus on Rio, and London is an experience I am going to need.

“If I am in Rio in four years time, I want to be in the individual event. I am taking all the experience from London and there will be nothing that will bother me. I will be doing my best and, hopefully, bringing back a medal. This is a way I can get to compete in a home games.”


‘York is the place I will end up back at. I love it’

PARALYMPIC fencer Craig McCann won’t be satisfied with anything less than a medal when he finally gets into Games action.

The 28-year-old, who put his studies at York’s College of Law on hold to pursue his sporting dreams, is one of three competitors who make up the Team GB squad in the men’s team event at London’s ExCeL arena on Saturday.

Having enjoyed a lightning ascent in the sport since being spotted by the British Disabled Fencing Association following a ‘Paralympics Potential’ session, McCann can’t wait to pick up his sword after a patient wait. And he plans on adding to Paralympics GB’s healthy medal haul “I don’t see any reason – not at all – why I can’t win a medal,” he said. “Everyone trains for a medal. It is what I have been getting out of bed for. I am here for a medal. That’s easier said than done, there is a lot of very tough competition so we will have to wait and see.

“I believe the team are ready and, if we perform to our best, we can be on the podium.”

McCann plans to follow his London experience by trying to make the individual fencing team at Rio in four years time. But, when his sporting ambitions are satisfied, he said he plans to return to the Minster city to resume his studies at some point in the future.

“I’m not going to be able to play with swords for the rest of my life,” he added. “It is something I plan to return to in the future. York is the place I will end up back at. I love it.”