Madinks have announced they will donate 10 per cent of all their printer ink sales up to the end of this year to help fund Jason Smyth ©MADINKS

Print cartridge providers Madinks have announced they will donate 10 per cent of all their printer ink sales up to the end of this year to help Ireland’s Paralympic and world sprinting champion Jason Smyth on his road to Rio 2016.

The company will also offer a 10 per cent discount on all of their products if customers quote “Jason 2016” at the checkout screen.

The news comes in order to increase the funding for Smyth, who will be looking to defend his T13 100 metres title when the Paralympic Games come to the Brazilian city in September of next year.

Smyth, a three-times world champion, was re-classified back from the T12 to the T13 class ahead of the International Paralympic Committee Athletics World Championships in Doha, which took place in October.

This means he will only be able to defend one of his two Paralympic crowns due to the T13 200m having been removed from the programme for next year's Games.

Ireland's Jason Smyth will be bidding to defend his T13 100m title at next year's Paralympic Games
Ireland's Jason Smyth will be bidding to defend his T13 100m title at next year's Paralympic Games ©Getty Images

Smyth, winner of the 100 and 200 metres T13 double at both Beijing 2008 and London 2012, was surprisingly shifted into the T12 category following a classification review ahead of last year's European Championships in Swansea, where he still won double gold.

The T12 division is for athletes with stronger impairments, with Smyth having been re-classified to that level following a supposed progression of his visual impairment, Stargardts disease.

Classification changes remain a major challenge across Paralympic sports, with the IPC having said this month that the alleged intentional misrepresentation during the classification evaluation process of athletes "is in grave danger of undermining the credibility" of swimming and "overshadowing the performances" of the sport’s athletes.

The Irishman was recently crowned the world's fastest Paralympian after winning a cross-classification 100 metres race held to mark One Year to Go until Rio 2016, clocking 10.73sec to finish ahead of American Richard Browne, the London 2012 T44 100m silver medallist.



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October 2015: World's fastest Paralympian reclassified back from T12 to T13 division ahead of World Championships
October 2015: Four-times Paralympic champion Smyth to skip 200m at World Championships with wife due to give birth
September 2015: Smyth crowned world's fastest Paralympian with victory in race to mark One Year to Go until Rio 2016
September 2015: Sprinters vying for title of world's fastest Para-athlete as part of Rio 2016 One Year To Go celebrations
August 2014: World and Paralympic champion Smyth completes double at IPC Athletics European Championships