Personal bests secured for England para team in Switzerland
Last week our first outdoor England para team for 2025 headed to Notwill, Switzerland to compete in the World Para Athletics Grand Prix.
This WPA Grand Prix event is hosted at one of the fastest wheelchair racing tracks in the world. This event sees the best wheelchair racers from around the globe come together for three days of hard fought racing. The England team consisted of five wheelchair racers, selected from within our talent pathway.
There were stand out performances from Daina Donnelly (Coventry Godiva, Job King) who is on our Youth Talent Programme. Daina set significant personal bests in the T34 100m and 400m achieving 5th and 6th places at the age of 17.
Picking up her first England cap was Ellis Kottas (Weir Archer Academy, Jenny Archer) who had a brilliant competition improving on her PB by seven seconds in the highly competitive T54 1500m. Speaking about the race week, Ellis said:
"Thank you again for this week, I genuinely had a great time and have learned a lot, it genuinely was an honour and amazing experience."
Meanwhile, team captain Moatez Jomni (Harlow AC, Rich Chiassaro) opened his season at the competition and picked up 5th place in a world class 400m T53 final.
Team results
- Moatez Jomni (Rich Chiassaro, Harlow AC)
- 100m – 16.08 (6th)
- 400m – 52.01 (5th)
- 800m – 1:53.44 (6th)
- Daina Donnelly (Job King, Coventry)
- 100m - 21.31 (5th)
- 400m - 1:12.90 (6th)
- 800m - 2:33.15 (6th)
- Ellis Kottas (Jenny Archer, Weir Archer Academy)
- 800m - 2:11.97 (11th)
- 1500m - 4:11.12 (12th)
- Sean Chigumba (Michael Blunt, Bedford & County)
- 100m - 19.15 (12th)
- 400m - 1:06.12 (10th)
- 800m - 2:13.88 (11th)
- Oliver Porter (Paul Moseley, Leeds AC)
- 100m - 17.24 (33rd)
- 400m - 55.95 (28th)
- 800m - 1:54.49 (31st)
(Images from Team Urs Sigg and Tobias Lackner)