My Sporting Life is The i Paper’s peek behind the curtain at what drives sports stars to greatness. Ade Adepitan was a member of the Team GB wheelchair basketball team that won bronze at the Athens Paralympics in 2004. After contracting polio as an infant, he is a lifelong wheelchair user who was one of the first people with a physical disability to present on mainstream television in the UK. The face of Channel 4’s Paralympic coverage, he will be part of the team presenting the Boat Race on the channel for the first time this weekend.
I challenge perceptions the moment I roll into a room
Everyone gets into a comfort zone, and we’re all used to what we see. So for TV producers, channel heads, what you’re used to seeing is white, non-disabled men presenting and hosting big shows. When I started, I might as well have been an alien from Mars.
But it’s something that I’ve grown up with all my life: every time I walk into a room – well, roll into a room – I challenge everyone’s perceptions, without even opening my mouth, just by what they see, and I immediately have to find a way to break that down and show people that I’m worthy.
I put myself under pressure to perform for other people like me
I always felt I had to be perfect. The moment I made a mistake, I would think ‘God, that’s it. That’s the last chance and I’ve messed it up for everyone else who looks like me’. That’s a huge amount of pressure, and it takes a lot of time and maturity and being comfortable with yourself to get over that.
For someone with a disability, the TV world felt like it was closed. I had to try and open those doors. I was fortunate enough to have people in the industry who believed in me, who were ahead of their time and who said to me when I started back in the late 90s, ‘It’s going to take you longer to be successful, but you’ll get there, and we’ll back you’.
Knowing I had that backing, that I had people who were going to fight my corner, helped me stay in it, because there was many times when I was ready to give up and say, ‘What’s the point?’.
Adepitan won bronze at Athens 2004 (Photo: Getty)I had just fallen down the stairs drunk when I met my wife
My wife Linda really is my best friend. She’s just amazing. She’s my better half by a long way, and that’s not me trying to get in her good books: ask any of my friends, they will say the same.
We met at the National Television Awards. I had just had an offer on a place in Putney fall through and I was drowning my sorrows. I had a few sherbets too many, and I was absolutely battered. Wankered.
I literally fell down the stairs out of the VIP bit, brushed myself off like I’d done it on purpose and got back in my chair. My back was all out of place, my arm was bent – and then I saw this amazing woman. She was beautiful, and I literally felt the force of her personality and thought, ‘I’m drunk, what the hell, let’s go over and chat.’ And we stayed in touch on Facebook and continued talking for the best part of a year before we hooked up.
Nowadays, we fall asleep at 8.30pm watching Last One Laughing on Amazon with a glass of wine and some chocolate in bed, praying none of the kids wake up!
Helping deliver London 2012 was my proudest moment
In 2005, I was in the room in Singapore when Jacques Rogge opened that envelope and said “London” – we got the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It was just incredible to be part of that.
You come home after Games and tell all your friends how good the Games are, but people don’t really get it. They say ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s great’ – until people actually experience it themselves. I remember looking at Seb Coe, Daley Thompson, Jonathan Edwards and Colin Jackson and saying, ‘Now people are going to know and feel how we feel’.
There were loads of naysayers, but at Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, Team GB were brought out into the stadium, David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ was playing, I looked around and I just felt this wonderful sense of pride about what we’d achieved, and what we were about to do. To know that I was a part of that, it doesn’t get much better.
www.instagram.com/p/DWbu1x_EnTu/Channel 4 changed the Paralympics forever
No disrespect to the BBC, they were doing what they could do, but I don’t think they had the resources or the time or the energy to do what the Paralympics needed.
London 2012 was a rebirth of the Paralympics, and it genuinely changed perceptions. We did something that can’t be rolled back now. Ellie Simmonds is a household name because of Channel 4 taking on the Paralympics. Sarah Storey, David Weir, Hannah Cockroft: we’ve got all of these homegrown stars. “The Last Leg” is now part of the fabric of the British TV institution, and being someone who helped ignite that and inspire that, I feel immensely proud.
When I was growing up, the Paralympics, people barely talked about it. People didn’t look at us as elite athletes. We were seen as people who just did sport for recreation.
I hope in 10, 20, 30 years’ time, we’ve seen the progress, and it gets to that place where Paralympians are seen as equals.
I cried when my son told me he wanted to cure my disability
My son said something quite profound to me once. He said, ‘Dad, I’m going to cut your stomach open and take out all of the water’. I thought ‘Excuse me, who has been letting him loose on YouTube?!’.
My wife explained that Bolla was asking about my disability and she told him that I had polio, and you get polio from drinking polluted water, dirty water. So he thought he could cure me by cutting open my stomach and removing the water. He gave me a hug and said ‘I’ll take care of you now, Daddy’.
I drop him off at nursery and the other kids ask ‘Why is your dad like that’? And we’re a mixed race couple, his Mum’s white. So he asks all of those questions – and we have those good, honest conversations, and a lot of times, it’s hilarious the stuff he comes up with.
But it’s good. A lot of times people shy away from those conversations, and also about disability. Now he says, ‘I’ve got a prepared answer for when my friends ask about why you’re in a wheelchair’. He talks to them, he starts explaining to them about polio, and then he says, ‘But my dad can play wheelchair basketball!’.
Ade will join Clare Balding and Jamie Laing as part of the Channel 4 presenter team. The CHANEL J12 Boat Race 2026 on Channel 4, watch or stream on Saturday from 1.30pm.
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