Colin Judge and Philip Eaglesham are two athletes that have made the most of their time away from competition by concentrating on areas outside of sport. Table Tennis star, Colin Judge, has recently begun offering his services as a motivational speaker whilst shooter, Philip Eaglesham, has taken on the task of designing and selling a range of wheelchairs with the aim of improving the lives of people with a disability.

See the full interview with Colin and Phil please click on this link below:

Para Shooter, Philip Eaglesham, who secured a slot for Ireland at the Paralympic Games prior to the lockdown, spoke about learning to deal with the pressure of being an athlete in a solo sport ‘In sports where you are on your own it’s all about you beating yourself a lot of the times like shooting is, no-one can beat me but me in a competition. If I go out the only way I can beat myself is in my head when I get myself over excited and getting annoyed at shots whereas I need to calm down and take that away and I found that at the world championships where, at the start I was getting frustrated at myself saying ‘you didn’t do well there and I was ready to throw in the towel and quit sport and all of this and a day later your sitting on the podium at the world championships saying maybe I wasn’t that bad yesterday.’

Colin Judge has planned to return to Slovakia next month where he will get to train with a play against his fellow Para Athletes ‘In Slovakia they’ve got a very good set up there, I stay with the top player in Slovakia  so I stay in the apartment with him and we’ve a big centre right next to us with all the different sports and very high level players in wheelchair, disabled standing and able bodied athletes train their too. You can go there pretty much any time and be guaranteed that there will be good players practising there and also there’s a lot more competition there.’

Philip Eaglesham has also been able to take advantage of his home, 13 metre shooting range during the Covid crisis ‘I talked about it before the last paralympics, I had mental health issues going into an electric wheelchair and losing my independence in 2014 to wanting to end it and then to World Championships medallist in the space of 5 years. With lockdown that’s been a struggle aswell with not having anything to look forward to and relying on other people and having that care and assistance through just to protect my family. So having somewhere to go during the day, and that’s why the tv is up there now, it’s an area where I can come out and relax and also shoot and make that an area where I can do it all.’