A deaf runner said her twin sister has helped her achieve her goal of representing Team GB.
Honor Morton, 18, from Askam-in-Furness, Cumbria, is heading to the inaugural European Deaf Youth Games in Germany in August.
But alongside training, Honor and her sister Gretta are fundraising because there is no funding available for any of the athletes.
A spokesperson from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said the Minister for Sport recently met with UK Deaflympics to discuss how to raise the profile of deaf sport.
The government previously said it could not provide additional funding to high performance athletes outside of what it already gives “to support Olympic and Paralympic success”.
But it said it did provide £1.2m each year for grassroots activities in deaf sports.
The twins have always done athletics together, with Gretta helping to make Honor’s experience more accessible.
While Honor runs anything from the 800m to the 10km, Gretta is a sprinter and runs the 100m and 200m.
“I can’t hear the starting gun, which I think a lot of people are quite surprised at,” Honor said.
“It’s usually my coach will tap me on the shoulder when the gun goes off.”
She said she also cannot hear other athletes breathing patterns, meaning she struggles to pick up on their body language, which she said was important during races.
“There is a lot of disadvantage there,” she said.
‘A little glance’
Honor said she was “so lucky to have a twin” and recalled the support Gretta gave her when they first took up sport.
“When we first came down to athletics and we joined athletics clubs, [Gretta] was usually the one that would tell the coaches you need to wear a radio so Honor can hear, you need to repeat instructions, you need to have hand signals instead of just saying go.
“It’s them little things that help you feel included.”
Gretta said: “Honor really understands my lip pattern more than she understands other people’s lip pattern, so I always get a little glance if she’s missed anything.
“It’s been really nice to go through the sport together.”
Their coach Ian Jones described them as “two of the most dedicated athletes you could ever meet”.
Honor had the season of her life two years ago, which saw her hit the qualifying standard for the European Deaf Youth Games in August, something she described as a “relief”.
Due to the lack of funding, she is fundraising so she can pay for travel, accommodation, food and even her Team GB kit.
“That just kind of goes a long way back to when the deaf athletes decided to be separate from the Paralympic Games,” Honor said.
“They wanted their own identity, their own community.
“However, we are now in a modern world where a lot of deaf athletes, like my age now, we want to go back to the Paralympics, we want to be part of a team that celebrates all different disabilities and not just our own.”
Still, Honor described the moment as “one of the proudest moments” of her life and said she was excited to compete against other deaf athletes.
“I think when you come into this world with so many different challenges and you see a lot of people achieving a lot of things you want to achieve, it definitely gives you that drive.”
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More on this story
- Please support us, deaf athlete urges government
- Deaflympics athletes ‘let down’ by lack of funding
- ‘Deaf athletes like me have to fund ourselves’
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