GB wheelchair rugby coach wins at 2014 Welsh Sports Awards

Paul Jenkins, coach to Great Britain’s wheelchair rugby team has been named winner of the ‘Sports Coach to the disabled’ award at the Welsh Sports Awards 2014.

Mr Jenkins coached the team to win Gold at Prince Harry’s Invictus Games early in the year, an achievement he has described as the pinnacle of his coaching career.

The coach took up wheelchair rugby in 1990 after a motorbike crash after left him tetraplegic and he competed in the 1996 Paralympic Games during his successful sporting career.

The former Welsh Guard Instructor began coaching the South Wales Pirates team after he retired from playing the game himself, and coached the GB wheelchair rugby team which went on to win Gold at this year’s Invictus Games, an international sporting event for wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women.

Mr Jenkins said: “It offered me a different side to coaching, the players had had different traumas, some had limbs missing, and others hadn’t used a wheelchair before. We had them for just 10 sessions over three months, yet they won Gold.

“Wheelchair Rugby showed me how much I could do without assistance. It helped me with the pent up tension and frustration you can get when you are in a wheelchair and helped me move on with my life. It’s a fabulous sport and I’d go anywhere to coach it.”

David Pond, chief executive, Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby, said: “It’s fitting to see someone of Paul’s calibre honoured in this way. He has been one of a small group of volunteers who have been instrumental in the development of the sport in the UK. He can feel rightly proud of the recognition the sport is now achieving and the opportunities it is providing to many individuals, not least those honourable warriors injured in the service of their nation.”

The Welsh Sports Awards recognise the people making a difference to sport in Wales, with categories ranging from young coach of the year to the lifetime achievement award.