Athletes

ade adepitan - invacare ambassador 2009 

 

Having survived polio as a youngster, Ade has gone on to compete as a wheelchair basketball player on an international level and has a wealth of TV presenting experience.

2005 saw Ade participate in Beyond Boundaries a four part documentary series for BBC2, which took him on the trek of a lifetime across the rainforests, deserts, rivers and mountains of Nicaragua. 2006 saw Ade report for ITV1's The Boat Show from the Atlantic Ocean. Ade regularly reports for BBC1's Holiday series having travelled to France, scuba dived in Mexico, gone on safari in Kenya and the Gambia, skied in Canada and America and most recently reported from Bonaire and Curacao in the Caribbean.

Ade has just taken on a new challenge with his first principle acting role for BBC1's new drama, Desperados which airs on CBBC and will get a BBC1 airing later this year. He has also appeared in ITV1's Hardware and BBC1's Casualty. Using his sporting expertise Ade reports for BBC1's weekly Sportsround series. Previously he has covered the European Championships for BBC2's Grandstand, and hosted his own Documentary for Radio Five Live, A Pair of Trainers, which saw Ade follow the personal progress of two unlikely fitness candidates and has taken a personal look at the music and club scene in London for BBC's 1Xtra in Can Dance Will Dance. An instantly recognisable face Ade can be seen in the high profile idents for BBC1. He presented BBC's daily X-Change programme for the last five years, which saw him presenting, live in the studio and out on location.  Other credits include Tiger Tiger for Channel Five, where Ade reported on endangered species from around the globe.  Highlights included riding elephants while looking for tigers in India and swimming with sharks in Australia, while personal triumphs included overcoming his fear of water and night walks in the depths of the African jungle. He also presented Dream Ticket for LWT. This saw him exploring Jamaica and diving in the Seychelles.

Ade has done a number of high profile public speaking engagements including the launch of the 2012 Olympic bid at the Royal Opera House alongside Tony Blair. He works extensively in the UK giving motivational speeches to schools, charities and businesses including Visa, The Royal Mail and BUPA. In January 2005 Ade performed a poem with Stephen Fry which detailed the plight of children with disabilities at The Holocaust Memorial in Westminster Abbey. A regular contributor for Ouch Disability Magazine and the BBC sports website Ade is currently developing his passion for writing.

Ade has proved he is capable of a lot more than your ordinary presenter. He has represented Great Britain at the Olympics in Athens 2004 (Bronze) and Sydney 2000 plus competing in The European (Silver) and World Championships (Gold).

Ade's energy and enthusiasm comes through in everything he does, making him an ideal patron for such charities as the Association of Wheelchair Children and Scope. He is an Ambassador for London's 2012 Olympic bid, features in their high profile poster campaign and was an integral part of the delegation that went to Singapore to present to the Olympic committee to help bring the games to London. Last year Ade was given an honorary Doctorate by Loughborough University and has had the honour of being awarded an MBE for his contribution to disabled sport in last year's Queen's Birthday Honours. 2007 saw Ade take on the challenge of the London Marathon in aid of Wheelpower and The Brain and Spine Foundation.
Keep up with Ade's moves on our News page
Log on to the GBWBA site for the latest on Wheelchair Basketball

 

philip cochrane - 

invacare youth ambassador 2008

Athlete: Philip Cochrane
DOB: 02.02.1994

Home Town: Newport, Gwent

Sport: Wheelchair Tennis and Basketball

What do you hope to achieve in your sporting career?
Phil wishes to continue progressing into world class competition at the highest level and to be respected by his coaches and fellow athletes.

Hobbies and Interests
In his spare time, Phil loves to go quad biking, watching Cardiff City Football Club and swimming.
Phil was recently filmed as a presenter of TV series, "Wonderful World of Weird" on Children's BBC.

Involved in Tennis: 4 Years
Involved in Basketball: 2 Years
Club Involvement: Cardiff Celts
Inspiration: Nick Taylor US Wheelchair Tennis Player because of his determination to succeed.

Hello all, I am very, very tired. In fact, if you look in the dictionary, there is a picture of me under the word ‘TIRED’

I have just come home from two tournaments in Wheelchair Tennis in Tel Aviv, Israel and Cremona in Italy. In Israel, I teamed up with Ade Adepitan for the Men’s Second Draw doubles event where we won through to the final.

We lost at 1.30am in the morning!!! In fact all my matches were late that week. The earliest I finished was 10.30pm in a singles match and that was just because I won 6-0, 6-1. I managed to get to the semi finals but lost in 3 sets to a player who has been ranked in the top 50 men’s rankings in the past. I was a bit disappointed because I think I should have won the tournament but I am still learning ;-)

Spending time away with Ade was fun, as he has loads of energy and a fun attitude, he is also easily the loudest doubles partner I’ve played with and pretty quick too!!

The hotel we stayed at was about 50 yards from the beach and I managed to go for a swim with my friend from Swindon, Louise and her coach Ali as well as my Dad. It was great because the bottom was shallow a long way out but the waves were still cool!!! The local lifeguards were almost crying when we used their brand new beach chair which is basically a seat with two huge knobbly tyred wheels on the back and one at the front, supporting a plastic chair, which you can push right up to and from the sea across the sand and get there easier than pushing a wheelchair… Dad and Ali thought so anyway it was so new, it had just come out of it’s box and we kept it all day.

I am getting used to food abroad now, but stick to bread, fruit and fruit juices in the mornings even though the locals seemed to have meat, or fish with eggs, Yuk.

I also have to do a few hours school work each day when I’m away from school, so I keep up to speed. My school are good at planning this for me, so it’s not a prob.

I was only back a week or so and ended up back at Heathrow again, this time though, flying out to my biggest tournament to date. The ‘Invacare World Team Cup’ The best way I can explain how big this event is, would be this..Next to the Paralympic’s, this is ‘THE’ event. I woke up 24 hours before the start with my eyes stuck together!!! AAARGH. I had conjunctivitis, I rang home and was told to see the nurse straight away, she travels with the team and got me drops for my eyes which sorted it out by the next day. Panic over, then I got an ear infection which kept me up half the night and had to get Anti-biotics. Suddenly I was worried. The pain killers and anti-biotics got me on court eventually in one piece.

I was Great Britain’s number one seed in the Junior event. You have a parade of Nations at the opening ceremony at which you all push out in front of the crowd behind your flag just like the Olympic parade. Invacare have been supporting the event for a long time and I was very proud to be not only an ‘Invacare ambassador’ but playing at an ‘Invacare’ event which was so important. I didn’t realise that Sharon from Invacare was in the crowd at this stage.

Britain had only got to the Junior final once in over 20 years, and this was last year. This year though, all of the players from 2007 were playing for the Men’s and Womens’ team as they had been selected or were too old for Juniors. I was very nervous, but had great support from fabulous team mates, the crowd and our Coaches and supporters and we won through ties against Australia, U.S.A and Poland and reached the final where unfortunately, the Dutch were too good on the day. Even though I was disappointed, I think we did very well as it is a World Championship

I will let you all know about my Quad bike and Ozzy Osbourne soon, I promise..

14-year-old Philip Cochrane won his first senior international singles title on Sunday when clinching victory in the Men's Second Draw Singles at the Mercedes Open, an ITF 1 Series event on the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, in Utrecht, the Netherlands

 

Cochrane, who became the youngest Briton to gain a senior world ranking last October, is now set to a career high inside the world's top 200 following his resounding Dutch success.

 

As top seeding going in to the event, Cochrane had a first round bye and then breezed in to the semi-finals, beating Antony Roy of France and Alessandro Consigli of Italy without dropping a game in either match. Another convincing 6-1, 6-3 win over Jacob van der Veen of the Netherlands earned Cochrane his place in the final, where he beat Dutchman Jelle Oosterwijk 6-0, 6-2 to seal the title.

Cheers, Phil

 

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