Music student sets sights on gold

James Ball won six gold medals over the summer

An 18 year old music student from Torfaen has overcome visual impairment to become a successful athlete.

James Ball has won six gold medals for 100m and 200m sprints in the Visually Impaired and Blind classifications in championships around the world.

UK Athletics has now chosen him to join its World Class Performance programme which supports potential world championship and Paralympic medallists.

The Coleg Glan Hafren student is also a keen drummer and plays in a band.

James, from Ponthir, has the visual impairments Achromatopsia (vision problems in high light levels) and a Nystagmus in one eye (involuntary movement of the eye and reduced vision).

The condition means he has to wear dark contact lenses to offset bright light. It can also be hard for him to read materials such as bus timetables.

James initially trained as a swimmer and was swimming for Wales from the age of 12 but decided to concentrate on athletics after taking it up at the age of 14.

He narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics when he failed to achieve the 100m qualifying time of 11.96 seconds.

But by training at UWIC's track every day James says he can now run 11.84 seconds.

He won his six gold medals in the summer of 2009 in the 100m and 200m at the Dutch Open, the Irish International in Dublin and the Grand Prix in Nottingham.

Due to his successes and growing reputation, UK Athletics has confirmed that James is one of 65 athletes chosen for its lottery funded World Class Performance Programme at development level.

This means he could receive cash, coaching and other support in kind worth around £40,000 a year to target a podium finish at forthcoming world championships and Paralympics.

Fellow Welsh Paralympic hopefuls Aled Davies, from Bridgend, and Dan Lucker, from Abergavenny, have also been granted development funding, along with 400m hurdler Rhys Williams from Cardiff.

Aside from his sporting achievements, James's love of music and drumming prompted him to decide to study Popular Music Technology at Coleg Glan Hafren and the University of Glamorgan.

"I wanted to know more about the industry - the digital side of recording and production as well as the performing side - so this is the perfect course for me," he said.

He adds that in the future he'd love to teach drumming or work in a recording studio.