When Carly Tait left Ashton-on-Mersey school she had little ambition to compete on the world’s biggest sporting stages – she preferred to get a job and socialise with her friends and family.
But she returned to the school yesterday as a Paralympian, working full-time towards her next big event, the World Para Athletics Championships which will be held in London this summer.
Now a member of Team GB, she went back to her old school yesterday, to inspire pupils to follow her into track and field Para athletics
Carly, who competed at Rio 2016, took part in a wheelchair masterclass and question and answer session with pupils during her visit to AoM.
Her story isn’t the familiar one of years of training from a young age to become an elite athlete. Instead when London hosted the Paralympics in 2012 Carly attended the closing ceremony – an event that transformed her life.
It was at that moment she vowed to reach her goal to compete at the following Paralympics in Rio 2016 and four years later she was on the starting line of the T34, 100m in Brazil.