Paralympics 2024: Para-archer Shaun Anderson on losing an arm and being paralysed

It was after the first of his two accidents that Anderson developed his love for bow and arrow.

“My son wanted to try archery,” the 51-year-old explained .

“We went into [an] archery shop, we got a bow, he shot and I said to the owner ‘I want to shoot as well’, and they said I can’t.

“I don’t believe in the word can’t.

“So in the end, I figured out how to shoot and the rest has been history.”

Within six months he won his first medal, at an indoor event organised in South Africa by the International Field Archery Association.

“When people tell me I can’t do something, I like proving them wrong.

“I’ve always been good at sport, I’ve always loved sport. Sport has been my saviour.”

Five years later, Anderson competed at Rio 2016 in the men’s individual compound, an event in which archers can stand, sit on a stool or use a wheelchair.

Despite losing his opening match in the round of 32, he took enormous pride from his experience.

“I didn’t get to the Paralympics on my good looks,” he said jokingly.

“It took a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice from my family, myself. I mean, financially massive sacrifices, we had to give up a lot to get me there.”

Anderson’s plans for Rio were almost thrown into disarray on the eve of the Games when he suffered a burst colon – a suspected after effect of the pain medication taken following his motorcycle accident.

He experienced more trauma on the eve of his second Paralympics when his father died of Covid just weeks before the start of competition in Tokyo.

“I think it put more pressure on me,” an emotional Anderson recalled. “I wanted really hard to do it for him.”