A journey to HSP/FSP: Hereditary Spastic Paralympians!

Please excuse the play on words in the title of this post - I suspect it wont translate well into other languages!

Readers may have noticed that the Paralympics followed after the Olympics, and I knew that there were a few people with HSP who were taking part. This post notes who they are and how they did.

Overall Team HSP has 8 athletes from 7 countries, who in total got 2 Gold medals, 2 Silver medals and 3 Bronze medals. I note that I didnt find out about one of these athletes until after the Games had finished.

Congratulations to all!

Evan Austin

Evan Austin (Team USA) won two medals, a Gold in 50m mens S7 butterfly and a Bronze in 400m mens S7 freestyle. Evan also competed in the finals for the SM7 200m individual medley and the Mens 34 point 100m freestyle relay, and also the 34 point 100m medley relay.

You can read Evans details here: https://www.teamusa.org/usparaswimming/athletes/Evan-Austin and https://www.paralympic.org/evan-austin - his Twitter bio reads: "Professional swimmer and speaker. Massive sports fan. My legs aren’t great but I work with what I got. Born with limits, living without them. Let it ride."

You can follow: https://twitter.com/E_A_swim and https://www.instagram.com/e_a_swim/

Roman Polianskyi

Roman Polianskyi (Team Ukraine) won Gold in the PR1 mens single sculls, setting a new Paralympic record along the way.

You can read Romans details here: https://www.paralympic.org/roman-polianskyi and here https://en.wikidat.com/info/roman-polianskyi. Roman switched from para-canoe to para-rowing.

I've not been able to find Roman on social media.

Toni Ponce

Toni Ponce (Team Spain) won 2 Silver medals in the pool, in the 200m S5 freestyle and the 100m S5 breaststroke. He also competed in the finals for the S5 100m freestyle, S5 50m backstroke and the 20 point 4*50m freestyle relay, and in the S5 50m freestyle.

You can read Toni's details here: https://www.paralympic.org/antoni-ponce-bertran

You can follow: https://twitter.com/tponce87 and https://www.instagram.com/toni_ponce/

Rebecca Hart

Rebecca Hart (Team USA) won Bronze in the Equestrian Team Test to Music. She also competed in the Grade III individual test.

You can read Rebeccas details here: https://www.teamusa.org/para-equestrian/athletes/rebecca-hart and https://www.usef.org/team-usa/athletes/rebecca_hart. Rebecca has written to the UK Support Group: https://hspgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/045-Sept-2018.pdf

You can follow: https://www.facebook.com/RebeccaHart136/ or https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rebecca+hart+para+equestrian

Laila Suzigan Abate

Laila (Team Brazil) won Bronze in the 20point 4*50m freestyle relay. She also competed in the S6 400m freestyle final and the S7 100m freestyle and S6 50m freestyle.

You can read Lailas details here: https://www.paralympic.org/laila-suzigan-garcia

You can follow: https://www.instagram.com/lailasuzigan/ or https://www.facebook.com/lailasuziganoficial

Ian Marsden

Ian (Team GB) competed in the final for the Men's KL1 200m Single Kayak.

You can read Ians details here: https://paralympics.org.uk/athletes/ian-marsden and https://ianmarsden.com/. Ian used to compete in power lifting (holding 3 world records) and switched to para canoe.

You can follow: https://twitter.com/IanMarsdenGB or https://www.instagram.com/ianmarsdengb/

Hallie Smith

Hallie (Team USA) competed in the final for the Women's PR1 Single Sculls.

You can read Hallies details here: https://www.teamusa.org/us-rowing/athletes/Hallie-Smith Her Twitter bio says: "Team USA Paralympian 2020ne. Coach, athlete, and advocate. Hereditary spastic paraplegia, so my legs are for aesthetic purposes only"

You can follow: https://twitter.com/smithonwheels or https://www.instagram.com/smithonwheels/ or https://www.facebook.com/HallieSmithParaRower/