Wheelchair basketball player hungry to claim medal for herself and role model father

By Will Castle

Amy Conroy is hungrier than ever and is going all out to win a Paralympic medal at Paris 2024 - both for herself and her superhero father.

Conroy is preparing to tackle her fourth Paralympic Games, chasing down an inaugural wheelchair basketball medal 12 years on from making her debut at London 2012.

With Paris 2024 the closest she has come to a home Games since London, Conroy can’t wait to have her loved ones in the crowd again, especially after playing in front of empty stands in Tokyo three years ago.

Tokyo 2020 was a particularly difficult time for the Norwich star, whose father, Chris, was fighting for his life during the Games.

But now, having made an inspiring recovery from a mind-blowing surgery, Conroy is ready to give her dad a moment to cherish after everything he has sacrificed for her.

“We lost our mum to cancer when I was a kid, so my dad is just my hero, my role model,” she said. “I just think I'm really lucky that I've got such a good dad. Not to brag, but he's the greatest.

“He was really sick in Tokyo, and he had a big, really cool surgery. They drained all the blood from his body, froze his body so the organs don't die and then took out these clots, and kept doing that for 11 hours. For 20 minutes, you're effectively dead.

“It was incredible and we're so fortunate he qualified because few surgeons can do that. But it was during Tokyo, so not ideal.

“He has been with me on the journey from when I first sat in a basketball chair and was hopeless, so seeing him in the crowd will make such a difference.

“I owe my outlook to him. You’ll probably see him in the crowd with his little GB tea cosy on his head. He's a man who doesn't cry so if I can just get one little tear out of him, I’ll be like ‘yeah, we made it’.”

Conroy is yet to podium at a Paralympics but has nevertheless helped usher in ParalympicsGB’s most successful era of women’s wheelchair basketball, notably reaching the bronze medal match at Rio 2016.

While the team missed out on a medal at the hands of the Netherlands, they still delivered Great Britain’s highest-ever Paralympic placing in the sport by coming fourth.

However, Conroy is not prepared to settle for national records and is laser-focused on claiming hardware, citing the team’s sky-high morale as something that will prove integral to any success they achieve.

“It feels like almost a chip on a shoulder where we're just so hungry for it,” she added. “We mean business now; we want that medal, and the team is such a great place.

“The energy is elite. Genuinely, everyone just really likes each other, roots for each other, and has each other's back and I don’t think you can fake that either. Our bench energy is nuts.

“It's a really special group and I think that's going to pay off. When things are going well, it's easy to be positive but that's the nature of sport, and within a competition itself, there's going to be highs and lows.

“It's the people that kind of have the grit and resilience and stick together, having each other's back and don't kind of fall apart, they're the ones that are going to make it to the end and be successful and I believe we have that group. So, if you're a betting man, put 10 dollars on us.”

With more than £30M a week raised for Good Causes, including vital funding into elite and grassroots sport, National Lottery players support our Olympic and Paralympic athletes to live their dreams and make the nation proud, as well as providing more opportunities for people to take part in sport. To find out more visit: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk