As part of the Rio Tinto Sports Innovation Challenge, the bioengineering students have developed a number of ingenious prototypes including a self-righting wheelchair for basketball collisions, a rowing device to allow below-elbow amputees to scull, and a handlebar rail for cyclists with upper limb amputations to transition between standing starts and aerodynamic racing positions.

Norfolk (pictured top, centre), who took gold at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, and silver at London 2012 before retiring this year, said today was his first experience of the project but explained it is something that particularly appeals to him as he also runs his own United Kingdom-based wheelchair company - Equipment for the Physically Challenged (EPC).


"It was fascinating to see the students' projects in the early stages of design," said the multiple Grand Slam and Super Series title-winner.

"I am closely involved with the creation of specialist athlete equipment through my own business, so am intrigued by the approaches that students are taking to the Rio Tinto Sports Innovation Challenge.

"I'm looking forward to see how the different inventions are developed over the coming months."

Goddard (pictured top, right), meanwhile, has been involved in the initiative for three years already and is excited by its potential to change the face of Parasport, particularly his own discipline.


"It's very pertinent to Paratriathlon because although we are made up of three existing sports, it is a very new sport in its own right," he said.

"Wheelchair racing and handcycling, which I do the bike and the run with, are pretty well established sports so the equipment for them has sort of reached a plateau, in that the research and development isn't going anywhere fast.

"And because Paratriathlon is a new sport we are having to adapt equipment to use ourselves.

"The athletes themselves are being inventive and doing things like for the swim, swimming is a big Paralympic sport but open water swimming is a wet sport is not so we are having to adapt our wetsuits for wheelchair users.

"Things like putting zips up the side of them so you can get out of them quickly, people have stitched legs together to make a sort of mermaid suit, we experimented for a while putting sailing batons up the legs to give them a bit of agility, different materials to stop your legs sinking and give you better posture and all that R and D (research and development) has just been done by the athletes.

"So, it's very interesting to work with these guys and see what they can adapt in an engineering mind rather than just me in my garage with a pair scissors, which is what it normally is.

"I'm looking forward to learn more about the self-righting wheelchair because I just fell out of my chair in the European Championships.

"I'd like to see them come up with something for a wetsuit in the future.

"So I'm going to put that to them for next year."

Norfolk, along with double Paralympic cycling silver medallist Jon-Allan Butterworth, will now test the prototypes outside of the classroom in real life sitations on a tennis court and at a velodrome in the coming weeks.

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