Advertiser View: Tennis star Gordon Reid will inspire many

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AFTER a week of epic sporting highlights, it’s easy to get caught up in the hysteria surrounding the nation’s favourite games.

Liverpool’s unthinkable Champions League semi-final fightback against Barcelona - and a certain Lionel Messi - to overturn a 3-0 first-leg deficit was enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

Just 24 hours later, Tottenham Hotspur’s miraculous last-gasp victory over Ajax at the same stage of the competition was the stuff of dreams for many, in that they simply did not believe it to be possible.

However, Gordon Reid’s story is one of an altogether different kind of sporting comeback.

The 27-year-old was born and raised in Helensburgh and attended Hermitage Academy, growing up as an avid sports fan and keen player of tennis.

His early promise was curtailed by a spinal condition which rendered him paralysed from the waist down just as he turned a teenager.

Three years after the devastating news that he would never again be able to walk, kick a ball, or sprint across a tennis court, he was representing his country at the Paralympic Games in Beijing.

And last week he was rewarded for his remarkable show of courage and determination in the face of adversity as he received an honorary doctorate from Glasgow Caledonian University.

Gordon’s achievements in wheelchair tennis must not be downplayed because of disability.

The mental strength required to reach the peak of any profession sets these superstars apart from us mere mortals.

In hiring a psychologist to help him beat personal barriers, Gordon admitted that he was able to turn around his own mindset and gain a crucial extra ‘half per cent’ over his rivals.

As he became the best in the world, he also changed perceptions of disability sport.

He said himself that a lot of people, when he was younger, had no awareness of disability.

From last week’s Q&A session, one statement which stuck in listeners’ minds was that “the chair is no longer the first thing people see when they look at me”.

Gordon Reid is appreciated, first and foremost, as a full-time athlete. And rightly so.

His humility and genuine kind nature endear him to fans. He is quick to acknowledge the role played by his family in supporting him along every part of his journey.

Together with his obvious talent in tennis, these qualities should be celebrated by all sports fans, and will undoubtedly inspire future generations to follow their passion no matter what obstacles present themselves.

It is fair to say that it will be a crying shame if his legacy isn’t capitalised upon to its fullest extent, in a similar way to that of Scotland’s other tennis icon, Sir Andy Murray.