The para basketball player, Siobhan Fitzpatrick, has achieved the highest accolades in her sport and is keen to ensure all young people are given the opportunity to participate and thrive

Great Britain and Loughborough Lightning para basketball player, Siobhan Fitzpatrick is keen to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to participate in sport at grass roots level – an opportunity she wasn’t always afforded, but one she’s passionate about. With that in mind Siobhan is supporting the Play Their Way campaign.
The campaign was launched in 2023 with the aim of transforming the way young people are coached by prioritising their rights, needs and enjoyment in a child-first approach. Funded by Sport England and the National Lottery, the campaign is proving a successful, inclusive route into sport for all and is something Siobhan says she would have loved as a child.

CHALLENGING TIMES

Siobhan wasn’t allowed to take part in PE as a youngster as her school told her they weren’t insured to let her participate – a problem that unbelievably still exists in some instances today. Grass roots sport wasn’t set up for people with disabilities either, so Siobhan’s participation was a non-starter until 2010 thanks to a playground to podium event which introduced her to basketball. She’s never looked back. As a junior Siobhan played at Coventry Wheelchair Basketball Academy (CWBA) where she was successful in the Junior Championships and School Games. She also competed in the club’s National and Women’s leagues.

Siobhan went on to co-captain the GB team to back-to-back championship wins at the 2015 U25 Worlds and 2016 U24 European Championships – something not achieved by any other female GB junior team. This was all while studying for A-Levels! In 2018 the squad retained their U24 European title and in 2019 the team won the U25 World Championship bronze medal.

HISTORY MAKER

Siobhan attended her first senior GB camp in 2013 and began training full-time with the national squad for the 2016/17 season. Having narrowly missed out on selection to the GB team for the 2016 Rio Paralympics, Siobhan made her senior debut at the 2017 European Championships. She’s now a regular member of the GB squad and was part of the team that made history at the 2018 Hamburg world championship by being the first female British team to qualify for a final and claim the silver medal. And in 2021, Siobhan was part of the Loughborough Lightning squad that won the first ever BWB Women’s Premier League title.

Last month, Siobhan came back to her former club, Warwickshire Cubs to highlight the importance of positive experiences for all children in sport. During the Wheelchair Basketball for All event at the Nechells Wellbeing Centre, Siobhan helped lead a session in which both disabled and non-disabled children took part in sport together. Whether having fun and staying active or instilling hopes of future Olympian and Paralympian level competition, Siobhan’s involvement at this grass roots is inspiring youngsters to get in to sport and crucially, feel like they belong there.