Wheelchair racers to hit road near Jedburgh at weekend

Samantha Kinghorn, left, and Murran Mackay at 2018's Jed Renilson race (Pic: Bill McBurnie)

Many of the fastest wheelchair racers and hand-cyclists in the world will be hitting the road in the Borders this weekend.

This year’s Jed Renilson Wheelchair and Hand Cycle Race takes place on Sunday, October 30.

The event has attracted some of the top names worldwide in wheelchair and handcycle racing over the past decade, starting off with Welsh Paralympics legend Tanni Grey-Thompson and attracting later generations of talent in the years since.

Among them is world champion, Paralympian and 2022 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Samantha Kinghorn after being introduced to wheelchair racing by late disability sports coach Renilson and Grey-Thompson at the Jedburgh event just over a decade ago.

The Gordon 26-year-old will be back competing in her home region as she continues her preparations for a full calendar of events in 2023, but she’ll have her work cut out to claim the title as she’ll be up against world-class competition including GB team-mates Hannah Cockcroft, Melanie Woods, Ben Rowlings, Sean Frame and Nathan Maguire.

Cockcroft, from Halifax in West Yorkshire, is the current female world record holder at 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m in her T34 classification and holds Paralympic records at 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m, having won seven gold medals at the last three Paralympics.

Shropshire’s Rowlings, born with cerebral palsy, switched from swimming to athletics at 15 and has won silver medals at European and world championships, as well as setting a world record at 5,000m.

Maguire, from Salford, claimed his first individual gold over 1,500m at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, having won silver at the Tokyo Paralympics’ mixed 4x100m relay and European medals in the past.

Former games teacher Woods and Frame will join Kinghorn in representing Scotland.

Glasgow’s Woods made it to the finals of her first Paralympics and Commonwealth Games after being left paralysed by a road accident in 2018, and Frame, of Lockerbie, having claimed a silver medal in the marathon at Birmingham.

The hand-cycle event will also feature a world star in Ken Talbot, the Edinburgh athlete having set a world record in 2018 by reaching 51mph over 200m.

The event has taken place alongside the running 10k in the past but that’s been cancelled this year, leaving the Paralympians to take centre stage.

The race, sponsored by Edinburgh-based Randolph Hill Nursing Home Group, will leave from Bonjedward Garage at around 10.20am, heading along the A698 past Crailing, then heading back to finish at Mounthooly.

That stretch of the A698 road will be closed from 10am until 11.30am, with the first finishers expected back around 11am.