North Yorkshire athlete says competing at the Paralympics is a childhood dream come true

With just one week till the start of the Paralympics a North Yorkshire athlete is encouraging everyone to get behind the games.

22 year old Lottie McGuiness from Darley near Harrogate will be competing in the power lifting.

Lottie tells us about her gruelling training regime: "So I train five times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. So my rest days are Tuesday and Friday and on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, I'll be benching and then doing other exercises so anything to help the back muscles, shoulder muscles, triceps, biceps, all of that. And then on the Thursday and Sunday session, I am focusing on the back and I'll be based just at the gym doing back work. In the gym, we are putting all the pieces of the puzzles together, so it's not just all about bench, it's about the little things from mobility as well to all the little recovery exercises."

And how is she feeling ahead of the competition: "I think qualification to get to the games was more terrifying but it's very exciting now because this has always been the dream in a sense. I mean, this time next week I'll be in the in my prep camp in Paris. It's a crazy feeling. It's such an exciting feeling. It almost feels like a birthday or Christmas is coming up, but I've been chatting to other athletes from other different sports and they're all excited and it'll be just nice to be together as a team and especially just to be out there supporting each other."

"I was inspired by someone who got me into sport and I'm getting messages from people saying I've inspired them...it's quite touching I think because that's where I started and that's like the next generation of athletes now that are going to be coming in. Now there's more media I think it really shines a light on the sport. I know there's people out there maybe like myself with dwarfism or any other condition, but it's knowing that you could be inspiring them is quite special."

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