RIDING HIGH

WORDS: CHRIS GODFREY // PHOTOGRAPHS: FRANCISCO GOMEZ

AT RIO’S PARALYMPIC GAMES, EQUESTRIAN LEE PEARSON CLAIMED HIS 11TH GOLD MEDAL,

MAKING HIM ONE OF BRITAIN’S GREATEST PARALYMPIANS — AND HE ISN’T LETTING GO OF THE REINS YET

When he was born, his limbs were so badly deformed that nurses put him into a broom cupboard. Three days would pass before they allowed his mother to see him. By the time Lee Pearson was six years old, he’d already been named one of the UK’s Children of Courage and was famously carried up the staircase at 10 Downing Street by the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Remarkable achievement in the face of huge adversity would become something of a theme for Pearson and now the 11-time Paralympic gold medallist is one of the few Brits who can claim to hold an OBE, CBE and an MBE, or to say they’ve met The Queen on several occasions, an honour bestowed on him as much for being a role model to both the gay and disabled communities as for his sporting accomplishments.

He picked up his latest medals at last summer’s Paralympic Games in Rio — gold for individual freestyle and silver for dressage — adding them to his career total of 35. It’s an incredible haul by any athlete’s standards, but Pearson has no plans of stopping there.

SURE-FOOTED: Lee on his way to a bronze medal in the freestyle dressage at the London 2012 Paralympic Games

How did you find Rio compared to the other Paralympic events you’ve participated in? Well, it was my fifth Paralympic Games and it was literally a case of, if you’ve seen one Paralympic village, you’ve seen another! I also flew out to Rio for two days in March, so I did a lot of sightseeing. Obviously, the media has instant access to knowledge and situations which you, as an athlete, have to shut off from because every single Games has negativity running up to it. [They said] London was going to be a disaster and different things, but London was amazing, especially the Paralympic Games, and Rio was the same. There wasn’t a media hub in Diadora, where the equestrian venues were, but we still had lots of media in the venue, so we didn’t feel like we were lacking anything. The food was a bit boring but there’s always a McDonald’s in a Paralympic village.