STEWART Elliot

Classification
B3 (IBSA, 28 Apr 2021)

Type of Impairment
Vision impairment (insidethegames.biz, 29 Jun 2020)

Origin of Impairment
Acquired (insidethegames.biz, 29 Jun 2020)

Impairment Details
At age 28 he was diagnosed with keratoconus, a condition that causes the cornea to bulge, resulting in blurred vision. He underwent surgery to prevent losing his sight completely. "At first I thought it was because I was getting older. But then three months later the amount of vision I'd lost was quite a lot. It was worrying. Especially when the people you go to at the hospital aren't too sure what was going on." (insidethegames.biz, 29 Jun 2020; bbc.co.uk, 19 Sep 2018)

General
ADAPTING TO PARA JUDO
Before being diagnosed with his impairment he practised able-bodied judo and says he initially found it difficult returning to the sport as a Para athlete. "Two or three weeks after my operation I was pretty down, I had given up really. Then through Judo I found out about the visually impaired team, the Paralympics, and that they had quite a strong team at the British Centre of Excellence. They were keen to get my vision tested to see if I qualified to be a Para athlete. It was difficult for me to adapt from being fully sighted to being visually impaired because there are a lot of things that I still try and do like I did when I was sighted. Now I struggle getting my head round doing things differently and accommodating for my vision. Even though I am the oldest person on the team, in some ways I guide the team and I'm an older brother, I still rely on them a lot to help me get through everyday life, because they are a lot more experienced in being visually impaired than me." (emergingproud.com, 27 Apr 2020)

BROTHERS AND TRAINING PARTNERS
He trains with his younger brother Max, who is an able-bodied judoka. "That I'm VI [visually impaired] really doesn't matter. When we are on the mat, we train together and we train hard. He's always looked up to me as a bigger brother and I've always seen him as a younger brother. I've always looked after him, so we never really had that fighting spirit between each other. We only get that when we're actually on the mat and then in training. We both know we've got goals, we both help each other get where we want to get to, we're both helping each other get better. So when we're on the mat we fight each other as hard as we can because we're trying to improve each other. But then off the mat we support each other, help each other, comfort each other, like brothers do." (edition.cnn.com, 30 Oct 2017; ParalympicsGB YouTube channel, 23 Apr 2021)

OCCUPATION
In January 2020 he founded Ninja Marketing Agency, where he works as a social media strategist. (LinkedIn profile, 01 Oct 2020)