Bought with the support of a number of benefactors, including the Jersey Society for the Disabled and Islander Phil Ahier, the £3,000 state-of-the-art device arrived in Jersey last month – ending a four-year wait for a woman desperate to compete.
The 22-year-old has never raced alongside fellow athletes. Her previous chair, sourced through Jersey Spartan AC, was not fit for competition and all Alves could do was train, and hope.
However, that has now changed. She at last has a formal athletics classification after funded visits to UK clinics for testing (T34; for wheelchair athletes with co-ordination impairments), and is ready and raring to go.
Full story in Wednesday’s JEP.
