East Kilbride athlete aims to guide pal to Paralympic Games slot

Stewartfield athlete Greg Kelly hopes an easy partnership with sprinter James Ledger leads to the Paris Paralympics this summer.

Kelly teamed up with Ledger, who is Wales and Great Britain’s leading T11 Paralympic sprinter, in December and the duo are already setting competitive times.

Friends off the track as well, their biggest tests will come in the final two World Para Grand Prix stages in Nottwil, Switzerland, from June 6 to 8, and Paris, France, from June 13 to 14, where it’s hoped they will qualify for Paris 2024.

Ledger, 30, is current UK record holder for 100m in T11, No.6 in Europe and 14th in the world in his category, which is for little or no light perception and often completely blind competitors.

Born with a rare defect called bilateral coloboma [eye structure not fully developed], Ledger is almost completely blind.

Due to competitors having different variations on their sight, however, athletes run blindfold, tethered to a guide – which is where Greg comes in.

Kelly, 25, who now lives in Manchester, said: “It’s going really well. We only started working together in December, and then the first training session happened at the start of the year, so it’s very much a new partnership for the season.

“I think we’ve picked up some skills and progressed pretty well. We’ve only raced a couple of times but have shown some pretty competitive times, with areas of improvement.

“In the next few weeks we’ve got some big races, including Para World Grand Prix in Paris and Switzerland, and our aim is to run really quickly there, when hopefully there will be good conditions and other fast athletes, the best possible conditions to run in.

“For the Paras it’s quite subjective. It’s tiered selection, so the tier that we’re