High jumper Jonathan Broom-Edwards sees the Paris crowd as “a beast to be harnessed” when he defends his Paralympic title in France later this year.
Broom-Edwards was one of 10 British track and field athletes named on the ParalympicsGB team in the first phase of selection on Friday, with the remainder of the athletics squad to be announced next month.
The 36-year-old from Essex, who will be competing at his third Games, will be joined by fellow Paralympic and world champions in track star Hannah Cockroft, shot putter Aled Sion Davies and javelin specialist Dan Pembroke.
Shot putter Sabrina Fortune and javelin thrower Hollie Arnold, who both won gold at the Worlds in Kobe last month, have also been named along with track competitors Sammi Kinghorn and Ben Sandilands, who triumphed at the 2023 Worlds in Paris, and sprinter Kare Adenegan and long jumper Olivia Breen, who were silver medallists in France.
Broom-Edwards, who took silver on his Games debut in Rio in 2016 before claiming his maiden Paralympic title in Tokyo with only team members and other athletes supporting him, told BBC Sport that he is excited about having a crowd supporting him in France.
“In Tokyo, I still had a lift from being in the stadium, but nothing can compare to an actual full stadium,” he said.
“I got a glimpse of it in Rio in 2016 and then got to experience it when I worked as a pundit in the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham during the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“It is a beast to be harnessed and is something that you need to be prepared for, but you also have to allow it to carry you – in my case to higher heights.”
Broom-Edwards, who was born with talipes (club foot), has always been a high jumper but only realised after London 2012 that his impairment made him eligible for Paralympic competition.