‘Emotional’ return to Paralympics for Britain captain Pratt

PARIS: Great Britain men´s wheelchair basketball captain Philip Pratt said his return to Paralympic action was “very emotional” as he led his country to a convincing opening win in Paris, after missing the Tokyo Games for mental health reasons.

The 30-year-old Welshman won a bronze medal with Britain in the 2016 Paralympics in Rio, but chose to rule himself out of the 2020 Games in order to focus on his mental health and spend time with his dying grandfather.

“Yeah, it is very emotional, I don´t think it really hit me until we came out of the tunnel today,” said Pratt after Britain´s 76-55 opening win against Germany. “Coming out (onto the court) as the last one, I thought it was unbelievable, I genuinely had a bit of goosebumps going on.”

Pratt was candid when speaking of his decision not to play in Tokyo three years ago and was happy to discuss his mental health issues, which for years were a taboo subject in elite sport. “In Tokyo, I was in a bit of a dark place mentally,” he said.

“I had a lot going on personally and my grandad was also dying at the time, so I made the decision to step back from basketball, step away from sport. “I thought it was only fair to my family and to my grandparents.

“Obviously it would have been unbelievable to be there with the boys and win a gold medal, but having the last days and moments with my grandad is something no gold medal will ever outshine.”

However, the Cardiff-born player said he was now in a “really good place”, partly thanks to the British team´s medical staff. Pratt played in Britain´s run to the World Championship silver medal last year and said it was only after the start of the tournament that he knew he had made the right choice to return.

“I was still kind of in a weird place (before the World Championships). “Then I think there´s a photo of one of the first games, I´m like booming and flexing. “I showed it to him (the team psychiatrist), I was like, thank you, you got me back to that moment.”

A year on from that tournament, Pratt shared that he was ready to take Britain one step further as captain. “Luckily these guys (his team-mates) believe in me to lead them and hopefully I can do enough to help us get there and fingers crossed when it comes to the medal games, we´ll be ready,” added Pratt.