Paralympic legend stranded at train station – after hoping for equal-access 'legacy'

Multiple gold-winning Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson was forced to drag herself unaided off a train in London – just hours after telling CGTN her main hope for the Paralympics was an enduring legacy of accessibility for people with disabilities. 

Grey-Thompson – who won 16 Paralympic medals including 11 golds, and held over 30 world records – said she was left stranded at King's Cross station on Monday night as she made her way to Wednesday's opening ceremony of the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. 

"After 16 minutes of sitting at King's Cross, no one in sight," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "I've got a few bags – had to chuck them on the platform, get out of my chair, sit on the floor right by the door, which is not particularly pleasant, and then crawl off.

"I can't crawl, but had to sit on the floor, drag my legs, pull myself across the floor, and then make sure I didn't lose my shoes or my phone, down the platform. There was no one around."

Grey-Thompson said she initially booked assistance on an earlier train but had missed it and taken a later service. Railway provider LNER said it was investigating the incident. 

Hours earlier, in an exclusive interview with CGTN, Grey-Thompson had spoken of her hopes that the legacy of the 2024 Paralympics would stretch beyond boosting sporting participation and into a more widespread accessibility for people with disabilities.

"We talk about the legacy as an increase in participation – and there is a spike, and then when young people realize it's quite hard to be an Olympian or Paralympian, they go off and do other things," she said. 

"But for me, the legacy is greater than that – it is about accessibility in the city, it's about changing attitudes towards disabled people. It's about thinking how you can use the Games to put those cities on the world map. So it's not just about Games time or the couple of weeks after. 

"Nelson Mandela said sport has the power to change the world, and it absolutely does. But it doesn't happen without a huge amount of people and a lot of time and effort and some money."

After the train incident, Grey-Thompson said  "It is now going to be 100 years before we have level boarding and I can get on a train without the permission or support of a non-disabled person. It's an old network. I accept it's not cheap or easy to do. But at what point is the government – any government – going to step in and say 'OK, we need to make a change'?"

We The 15%

Grey-Thompson told CGTN that the Paralympics are a vital platform for raising awareness around disability and reducing inequality. 

"The International Paralympic Committee is very keen that they use the power of the Games to nudge and change opinions around disability," she said. "There was a big campaign after Tokyo, which was called 'We The 15' – 15 percent of the world's population has some form of disability. 

"The Paralympics can't do it all, but all the prime ministers and the presidents from all the countries around the world who will be there for the Games, if they're inspired by it we need them to go back to their own countries and keep changing how disabled people are treated."

Grey-Thompson, who competed in five Paralympics between 1988 and 2004, commended the increased forward planning that now goes into hosting the Paralympics shortly after the Olympics.

"What's happened with the last few cycles is that they're looking at both Games years ahead," she said. "The Beijing Games in 2008, they were planning access way before the start of the Olympics. London learned from that and each Games has done that as well. 

"What you want is to have as little transition between Games as possible. Paris is an old city - access is not particularly easy - but the legacy of the Games, which we all talk about now, goes beyond a couple of weeks after the Games. Paris can keep changing itself and looking forward for years and years after the Games, like other cities have done."

Pushing the bar as high as possible

As an athlete turned commentator, Grey-Thompson has seen from close quarters how the Paralympics have gone from something of an afterthought to a more integral role, from widespread TV coverage to more inclusion. 

"My first Games was Seoul in '88, where there was very little coverage in the UK. And with each cycle they've grown and developed and now they sit very much alongside the Olympics," she said.

"What's very exciting about Paris was that we had Paralympians as part of the final relay for the lighting of the torch. Paris has really laid down a mark, that they want to really push the Games to the highest bar they possibly can."

As for the sport itself, Grey-Thompson is anticipating 12 days of fierce competition.  

"China is going to be pretty much impossible to beat – they've topped the medal table since Athens [2004] – but France and the USA are coming through very strongly," she said. "So I think these will be the most competitive Games yet, and there'll be brilliant sport every single day."

And will she be sad to be commentating rather than participating? Only momentarily, she said – "For about three seconds when the athletes come out. And then I very quickly remember that training 15 times a week, 50 weeks of the year is quite hard. 

"Competing is great – the training is a bit dull and boring. So I'm very privileged to sit on the finish line and talk about my sport now."

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