It was a tough realisation for the then-25-year-old who had gone to Beijing unbeaten in eight years, but finished with bronze. "I knew that I just had to go out there and do what I'd normally do," he says, "but when there's expectation it can be quite hard to control. The crowd was so big that it also added to the pressure; it would be quiet until a Chinese athlete came out then it would go crazy, it went from one extreme to another. In London you'll know that noise is for you, and while it'll be a distraction, it'll be a positive one, but it was tough in the Birds Nest.

"I was so disappointed after that I didn't really know how to take it. I felt like I lost my way a bit, but looking back it opened my eyes and made me more focused. For the past two years I've been working as hard as possible to ensure that doesn't happen again."

Older and wiser, defending champion Greaves travelled to January's International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Athletics World Championships in New Zealand as Aviva GB & NI team captain and admitted that the squad as a whole had benefited from a change in attitude, attention to detail and team spirit in the intervening years.

"This is one of the best competitions I've ever been involved in for team cohesion," he said at the time. "Everyone is in a really positive mind and working together. We've got a diverse group of athletes, old and young and we're all helping one another out – I think it'll lead to a successful team overall."

He was right, and the seamless integration of seasoned internationalists and teenage debutants led to a hugely positive atmosphere and successful medal winning campaign. "We were all hungry for it," reflects Greaves; "the juniors were so eager, and it was lively, whereas Beijing had just been a bit stale."


The team went on to exceed all expectations and won a total of 38 medals to surpass the previous totals in Assen 2006 and Lille 2002 and finish third in the medal table. In addition to a new global mark from Greaves (58.98m), British athletes achieved 19 lifetime best performances and five new European Records.

It was a significant step on the journey to London 2012 for both Greaves and his junior compatriots who, he says, "have got a good attitude, both positive and ambitious, and give off a really positive energy."

While many of those young athletes have benefited from a well-supported and delivered Paralympic Pathway through the Aviva Parallel Success initiative, Greaves' own transition into disability sport is less text book. "I didn't even realise I could compete in disability sport until I was 17," he says. "I'd been competing as an able-bodied athlete with my coach Jim Edwards at Charnwood (Loughborough) since I was 13."

In fact, his own experience of Paralympic sport was limited to the television and that had proved less than inspirational.

"I think the first Paralympic Games I watched was in Atlanta in 1996," he says. "At the time I was still throwing in able bodied competitions so it wasn't really registering, but I do remember that it wasn't very exciting or fast paced and I pretty much switched off.

"Looking back now you can see how far it's come (Paralympic sport). The knowledge has increased, the athletes are more professional and performances are getting increasingly better; guys like Oscar (Pistorius) are pushing boundaries and it's become more exciting.

"New Zealand was, and London is a unique opportunity to show the world what we're made of. The whole Paralympic Movement has moved on so much since Atlanta and there's some serious competition out there. The medals we've perhaps taken for granted in the past are no longer so easy to win. We were ahead of the game but the world has caught us up and we've had to – and are having to continue to - work harder than ever to make the grade."

"I'd had a good year in 2010, as did many of the others, so there was real expectation to perform in New Zealand," he reflects; "we did, but now we have to set ourselves new targets. A 60m throw is my main aim, but since throwers peak later than track athletes my dream, realistically, would be to hit the 65m mark."

It goes some way to evidencing the performance benchmark for a World and former Paralympic champion, but it's the media attention that will make the greatest difference to the sport as a whole, he says. "It's the best way to show off our sport and it's the best form of communicating what we do," he explains. "That wasn't happening in 1996 and it's now a major part of everything we do. I hope that by London the profile will be so high that people will understand the sport and see it as exciting, and in turn, that it will prompt others to get involved."

Katy Anderson is UKA's media lead for Paralympic performance. Read her interviews first on www.insideworldparasport.biz thanks to UK Athletics, the National Governing Body of the premier Olympic and Paralympic sport.