Cathy Mitton

AGAINST all odds could be the theme song of Beijing-bound Cathy Mitton.

The York-based table-tennis player is in the ten-strong Great Britain team to compete in this year's Paralympics which are to be held in China a month after the Olympic Games' razzmatazz unfolds.

But it's a journey that is probably far less arduous than the one the Rufforth-based table tennis ace has to take in order to just play the game she excels at from her wheelchair, to which she was confined several years after contracting polio at the age of two.

Just think on the next time you get a kick on the calf, or a boot-lace snaps, or your wrist-band chafes. At least you are not struck by problems such as finally finding a sports hall accessible for wheelchair use, only to find that you then need a lift to get to the sports hall. Then, you discover that no one has got the key. When you find someone with the key, they don't know how to operate the lift.

If that's not enough of a discouragement, you attend an adequate sports facility only to find that the car park is at the bottom of a hill. Gulp.

As she says: "All I would love to do is to go to a sport centre, pay my money and play - that's all, just like everybody else."

Mitton, who also has to make "meet them half-way" pilgrimages to either Heckmondwike or South Leeds Sports Centre to maintain her coaching with specialist coaches based either in Manchester of Sheffield, refuses to be downcast, however.

Despite adversity which constantly dogs her wheelchair tracks, Mitton has battled on to the pinnacle of a sport she only started less than 20 years ago for "something to do".

Since then she has captured three International Paralympic Committee World Championship medals, including gold, two bronze medals from successive Paralympic Games and a stack of other plunder from across Europe.

This autumn's adventure will be her third Paralympic Games wearing the red, white and blue of team GB, yet Mitton remains kittenish-excited at the prospect of trekking to the Chinese capital.

And unlike at other top-class events, all tickets for table-tennis at the upcoming Paralympics have already been sold out at the Beijing University Stadium simply because the Chinese are crackers for the sport of table-tennis either played by the able-bodied or the disabled.

Enthused Mitton: "It's not unusual for us to play to near-empty halls, but we've been told that the tickets are already sold out for our event in China. Everyone is mad about the sport over there and they all want to watch. It's definitely going to be a different type of experience."

The data information worker at St James' Hospital, in Leeds, is particularly thrilled at the prospect of her third Paralympics being in China, a country she first visited several years ago when she and her husband, Keith, a former international disabled fencer who competed at both the Atlanta and Sydney Paralympics, travelled to Hong Kong.

"I've been really fortunate with my appearances in the Paralympic Games," she recalled.

"My first appearance was in Sydney in 2000, when I won a bronze. Australia was just such a fantastic place.

"Then in 2004 I went to Athens, the home of the Olympics, and that was just a great experience. I won another bronze there and because we were in Athens the medallists were all given special laurel-leaf garlands for our heads. I made sure that was a memento I brought back with me.

"Now I'm going to China. We had a day trip there when Keith and I were in Hong Kong when that was still a British colony. It was such a culturally different place then. It was like going back into the Dark Ages. I just wonder what it's going to be like now.

"Of all the events I have appeared in what excites me most is the training, the different places, the culture, the people, the food - all that side.

"When I am competing I am actually a bag of nerves. I feel sick inside and it's something I don't really look forward to."

Given Mitton's penchant for tallying medals at whatever event she appears at, that would seem a bizarre confession especially as she was successful in her first international competition in 1997.

Soon after taking up the sport she was appearing for Great Britain in events held at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Britain's major centre for the treatment of severe injuries. She finished first there in 1994 and a few years later, on her first invited appearance into the GB squad, Mitton took silver medal in the European Championships then held in Stockholm.

A year later she matched that feat with a silver in the 1998 World Championships, her first, in Paris. Since then it's been a regular trek to the medal, which is at odds with her previous sporting experiences.

After polio reduced her from walking with callipers to being confined to a wheelchair she confessed to having no interest whatsoever in sport. That was only kindled after she got married.

"Keith was fencing and I had nothing to do, so I took up table-tennis," said Mitton. "While I do not have the power of able-bodied players, competitors like myself have a lot more balance."

And as Mitton further explained, where there is an age limit to the sporting endeavours of able-bodied athletes and those Paralympians who focus on sports such as athletics, there is no exclusion zone for she and her fellow competitors.

"In some sports you can be finished by the time you're 18, or 25 or 30. But in my disabled sport and others like it, there's no barrier to age. It's inclusive and that's why more people who are disabled should be encouraged to take up sport."

She may have battled against all odds, but Cathy Mitton remains imbued in the joy of life that sport can bring. Now bring on China...

Cathy Mitton's medal magic

World Championships: gold (2002, Tapei); silver (1998, Paris); bronze (2006, Montreux); team silver (2002, Tapei).

Paralympic Games: bronze (2000, Sydney); bronze (2004, Athens).

European Championships: silver (1997, Stockholm).