Park Campus’ Library Information Technologist and former Paralympic athlete, Mark Chard, has been chosen to carry the Olympic Torch through Cheltenham this May.
Mark will be one of 8,000 torchbearers across the country that will help mark the start of the London 2012 Olympics.
Mark has had cerebral palsy since birth and, at the age of 13, took up swimming as therapy to control the spasms he suffered as a result of this. Although wheelchair bound, quadriplegic, and with only limited use of his left arm, Mark won a Silver and Bronze for Swimming and Boccia respectively at the 1984 Paralympics in New York.
He has worked at the University of Gloucestershire for 23 years, and studied here to gain a computer science degree.
Mark is delighted, he said: “I am really proud to be given this honour, it means I still have a link to the Olympics when it comes to this country and it's like it has come full circle."