Athanasios Ghavelas

Started: He began running at primary school, and started competing at age 15. (paralympic.org, 06 Apr 2023; gameplan-a.com, 21 Mar 2023; neoskosmos.com, 03 Sep 2021) Reason: "When I was in primary school, I did tennis, basketball, football, running. Everything. I remember playing with the other children. When we ran, everyone was trying to be the fastest, but I always won. I've always loved running, and I've always loved to run fast. I was never going to stop anything. I loved sport, I followed sport. I wanted to do running, I wanted to do it well. The vision loss did not stop me, it didn't stop my dreams or my focus. And when I was 15, I went to a track for school races, which is where I met my coach. And we are still together [in 2023]. We had a conversation where he just asked what I wanted, and I said, 'Make me a Paralympic champion'." (paralympic.org, 06 Apr 2023; gameplan-a.com, 21 Mar 2023) Ambition: To win a gold medal at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. (paralympic.org, 06 Apr 2023) Awards: He was named Best Male Para Athlete at the Panhellenic Association of Sports Press [PSAT] Sports Awards in 2021 and 2023. (psat.gr, 21 Dec 2023, 24 Dec 2021) He received a First Place Award at the 2023 Honorary Awards held by the Hellenic Paralympic Committee. The award was in recognition of the gold medal he won at the 2023 World Championships in Paris, France. (paralympic.gr, 05 Feb 2024) In 2022 the gymnasium of the 1st Gimnasio Neou Psichikou high school in Greece was named after him. (top-nea.gr, 16 Dec 2022) In 2021 he was named Athlete with a Disability of the Year at the Gazzetta Awards in Greece. (LinkedIn profile, 01 Sep 2023) Additional Info: <B>Guide</B> Theodoros Vrontinos; Dimitrios Chrysafis (paralympic.org, 23 May 2024; Facebook page, 12 Feb 2024; Institut Francais de Grece YouTube channel, 22 Feb 2024)