Jim Roberts MBE

‘I'm a great believer that you don’t know what you can do until you put into a situation’

Paralympic wheelchair rugby gold medallist Jim Roberts explains the game and shares the story of his incredible sporting journey

Wheelchair rugby is actually nothing like rugby – other than it shares a name and it’s a team sport with contact. We've got the same beliefs, the same ideologies and we come together as a team.

The game was originally called Murderball because of its high-intensity and aggression. Invented in Canada in the 1970s, there was a real desire and push to get the sport into the Paralympic Games, so a more marketable name had to be chosen so the sport settled on – wheelchair rugby.

It was introduced to the Paralympics as a demonstration event at the Atlanta Games, in 1996, becoming a full Paralympic sport at the Sydney 2000.

To explain the game: Each squad is allowed up to 12 players with only 4 allowed on court at any one time. Players are ranked on their functional ability – going from 0.5 which is the least function (most disabled) to 3.5, most function (least disabled). I was a 3.0 player, so towards the top end of functional ability allowed.

Teams are allowed up to a total of eight points on court at any one time and women are allowed to play alongside men. Women are allowed a 0.5 point reduction, so they get to play above their class.

Players have 10 seconds to bounce or pass the ball, 12 seconds to progress from their try line to the half-court and then a total of 40 seconds to score a try. Apart from that there is no physical contact – you can’t grab someone, but you can hit the chairs as hard as you like – so a lot of time is spent on the ground, especially when learning the sport.

You can be tipped out of the chair. The chairs are made of aluminium with bash bars all around the front and the sloped wheels, they’re much more manoeuvrable compared to everyday chairs.

I’d usually wear out a chair in 12 to 18 months, just by beating it up, and as they are expensive it’s not the cheapest sport to get involved in.

I contracted bacterial meningitis in the first week of the summer holidays following my first year at Coventry University in 2007 and spent two and a half years in hospital, losing both legs to the disease.

One of my rehab nurses suggested I should try wheelchair rugby and it was the perfect fit as I played rugby when I was growing up and this automatically drew me to the sport. That was in 2010 and I made my Team GB debut in 2013 and was selected for every major tournament during my wheelchair rugby career.

GB were strong, but had always been known as the ‘nearly man’, especially at world level – we won three European Championships but that next step up to world-class had eluded us.

In my first Paralympic Games in Rio 2016 the team finished fifth, having lost out to Canada in a nail-biting group game in double overtime that ultimately knocked us out of medal contention.

We achieved paralympic success at the Tokyo 2020 (2021) Paralympics, winning GB wheelchair rugby’s first ever gold medal at world or Paralympic level, beating the USA 54-49 in the final.

I'm a great believer that you don’t know what you can do until you put into a situation and at the final whistle in Tokyo I just put my head in my hands, as phew, it was an absolute relief.

Because of Covid it was quite surreal not able to celebrate quite as we would have if the restrictions weren’t in place. Once we were home with the gold medal it was completely different with all the media interviews, the parties and all the other things that come along with it – that was when it all really sunk in.

We didn't really understand the scale of what we’d done until then, we had been so ‘bubbled up’ due to the pandemic – scared of our own shadows.

We very much kept to ourselves as wheelchair rugby was first Paralympic event and we wanted to make sure we got to start the tournament. We’d worked so hard to be there, we couldn't mess it up”.

James stated the one-year postponement of the games actually worked in the team’s benefit, the team had two high point players, Aaron Phipps coming back into the team (he was at London 2012), and Stuart Robinson who’s ex-military. They’re both 3.5 players, who both came on really well with that extra year of development. Both will be ‘ones-to-watch’ in Paris.

All eyes on Team GB in Paris

In terms of competition at Paris 2024, it is probably going to be the tightest-fought wheelchair rugby Paralympic title ever. There are six teams out of the top eight who have got a genuine chance of winning a medal so it’s going to be exciting to watch. I will be commentating on Channel 4 and excited to be heading out to Paris but without having the pressure of competing.

Since retiring from wheelchair rugby I still have a competitive itch to scratch and have recently taken up Olympic trap shooting. It was great to meet Peter Wilson (Olympic double trap London 2012 Gold medallist) for some tips at the Howden Olympic and Paralympic evening!