POPHAM Ben

Classification
S8, SB7, SM8 (IPC, 19 Jan 2021)

Type of Impairment
Cerebral Palsy (communitynews.com.au, 22 Apr 2016)

Origin of Impairment
Congenital (communitynews.com.au, 22 Apr 2016)

Impairment Details
He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant, which later affected his legs. (communitynews.com.au, 22 Apr 2016; telethon7.com, 31 Oct 2011)

General
EARLY DAYS
As a child he was involved in a number of able-bodied sports alongside his twin brother Adam, which he says helped later in his sporting career. "Everything that Adam does, I also do. So we sort of built the expectation that nothing is different about me, which is good because then you say, 'Wow, I can do everything that these kids can do and there's nothing different or special about me'. So I learned and developed with Adam. This really helped me because I was treated the same and so learned the same lessons that everyone does in sport, which is resilience and character building." (Inclusion Solutions YouTube channel, 18 Dec 2019)

TELETHON
He was part of the 2011 Little Telethon Stars in Australia. He say his telethon appearance played a significant role in helping him pursue his elite sporting dreams. In 2019 he returned to the show. "Everything was just so positive and it's really shaped me. It had a huge impact. My identity, to an extent, is being a disabled sportsman, but Telethon really helped me accept that that's OK. The theme from my year was 'I can', so it was focusing on everything I could do rather than what I couldn't. Learning to embrace that different side of me and my sport set me up really well to have the elite sport mindset I have. It's a really fond memory and it's incredible to remember how caring and joyful everyone was around the scenes." (thewest.com.au, 28 Oct 2019)