# On your marks... # My name is Angus Hincksman.
I'm a T38 Para-Athlete... # Get set... # ...running in the 1500 metres # starting gun fires # at the Paris Paralympic Games. When I was born, I was born with cerebral
palsy, had a brain injury at birth, and my parents were pretty much told that they
need to expect for life in a wheelchair. When things ended up turning out a lot better than
they expected, they just thought we were told that you weren't going to be able to walk,
and now you're walking. So they were always like we're not going to limit you and we're
going to let you figure out what you can do. I have CP on, on both of my calves, and
it's called spastic diplegia. I used to have like serial castings and calipers when
I was in school. So pretty much these casts and calipers sit your calves, and your feet in
like a 90-degree position, it's like a boot, and it straps around your legs. It stops
you from flexing your toes outwards. And I hated my calipers. They used to, need to, one of them when they first put me
in calipers, I destroyed them within like three days and then they needed to
build new ones that I couldn’t break. And whenever I was doing sports and
activity, I was able to take those off. I remember, every Tuesday, Thursday, my Grandpa would pick me up from school and
he'd take the dog for a walk on the beach, and I would run along the beach while he was
walking the dog and I'd run just until I was almost out of sight and then I'd come back. And
that was like sort of a feeling of, of freedom for me was running and it was um, a way to sort
of... I would say not let my disability define me. I was just like any other kid, I was hanging out
with mates, I like was playing footy all the time, I played footy until about under 12s, played a
lot of cricket, have always done Surf Lifesaving. In 2015, I qualified for my school cross country
team, and sort of streamlined from there. Qualified for my first state team and got taught
about Para-Athletics through Novita, who were helping me with my CP at the time. So they pretty
much told me about this avenue where I could get classified, run as a Para-Athlete, taught
me about the Paralympics for the first time. So there's a tonne of classifications, I think
there's five cerebral palsy and coordination impairment classifications ranging from
T38 to T35. So T38 is the mildest of the, of the cerebral palsy and coordination impairment
classification, that's my classification. And when we go to the Paralympics
and World Champs I verse other T38’s. Where on a local stage, at Nationals, I
would compete in a multi-class system. Say we're running a 1500 and
my world record is 3:47 and I'm racing someone with a world
record of four minutes. So 3:47, four minutes, I need to beat that person by
13 seconds to beat them in a multiclass race. 2022-2023, I made some massive jumps in my,
in my running times, I broke four minutes for the 1500 for the first time, which was a massive
barrier for the T38 Class. And it's pretty much the equivalent to the four-minute mile, there's
only a select a handful of T38 runners that have ever run that time and from my knowledge I was
the youngest to ever do it, I, I broke it at 17. That led me to go to World Champs in 2023, which
was a massive thing for me and came away with the bronze which was a massive moment for me and
I was able to experience that with my family. I was one of the first to be
selected in the para-athletics team, so to be selected in the first 50 is
um, I'd say it's a pretty big honour, and something I'm pretty keen about and
I'm glad to do and sort of proud of. I started my athletics journey in 2015 and this
has been sort of a seven, eight year journey to where I am now and to say that I thought
that it was going to happen like this was um, I didn't really think I was going to be
doing this this early I would, I would say. I just want to be confident and comfortable with
everything I've done standing on the start line. Obviously have a goal to just run as best
as I can and, and bring home a medal. And I feel like the good thing about
the Paralympics is it's relatable. You get to see the struggles of a parathlete
and you get to hear their inspirational stories and something you can really
relate to, which I think is incredible. It's a moment where people with
disabilities have the ability to shine and they get to show the world what they do.