From Stoke Mandeville to the London Marathon
No doubt Ben Gittins is not the only runner in this year's Virgin Money London Marathon to have been inspired by the London 2012 Paralympic Games. But he's surely the only one who can claim a direct connection with the event's founder.
Gittins, a 24-year-old Durham University graduate, is the great-grandson of Sir Ludwig Guttmann, the Jewish refugee and pioneering neurologist whose rehabilitation work with spinal injury patients at Stoke Mandeville hospital gave birth to the disabled sports movement and led directly to the modern Paralympic Games.
Growing up, Gittins always knew of his family's link to the Paralympics, but never grasped quite how close those ties were until the London Games two years ago when he saw for himself what an incredible legacy his great-grandfather had left for disabled people.
A recent convert to running, Gittins vowed then to train for the London Marathon and raise money for the disabled sports charity, WheelPower, which counts his maternal grandmother, Eva Loeffler, Guttmann's daughter, as one of its vice-presidents. He said:
"I always knew my great-grandfather had a lot to do with the Paralympics as a concept. But I just didn't realise how much until the last few years and all the attention on him during London 2012. I found it so emotional being there, more than I could ever have imagined it would be. I had always been interested in disabled sport, and watched it when it was televised, but it meant so much more to be there and feel how special it was."
Gittins bought tickets for the Games himself, but he also had ‘inside' access via ‘Granny Eva' who was made honorary mayor of the Paralympic Athletes' Village. He continues:
"It was being there so much which inspired me to raise money for WheelPower. I've never felt such a strong affiliation to any charity. I knew about WheelPower from granny and the family connection with Stoke Mandeville, but the Games made it real for me. After the Games I just got more and more interested in disabled sport and what the charity does."
He got more interested in his own roots too. He'd known since childhood the tale of how Guttmann and family, including six-year-old Eva, had fled from Nazi Germany in 1939 with help from the British government, carting with them the family piano where they'd hidden all their jewellery and other valuables.
"I'm still a bit unsure of all the details. But I know they were helped by a government scheme because my great-grandfather was such a high profile scientist and neurosurgeon in Germany."
It was only when they were settled in England that Guttmann began to work with spinal injury patients, "because at that time, no one else wanted to do it". Guttmann believed sport was essential to his patients' rehabilitation, building physical strength and self-respect.
As a result of his efforts, the first wheelchair games were held there in 1948, later becoming the Stoke Mandeville Games. In 1960 the first Paralympics were staged in the Olympic city of Rome, and the first Winter Paralympics followed in 1976, in Sweden. The rest, as they say, is family history.
IPC Marathon World Cup
Guttmann died in 1980, nine years before Ben was born, but the Paralympics have since become a worldwide sports movement for disabled people of all kinds. One of its newest ventures was launched at the London Marathon last year when the first IPC Athletics Marathon World Cup was held, providing a series of races for world-class disabled runners in a range of categories.
It was a great success, producing four official IPC world records, and will now be staged as part of the London Marathon until at least 2017, when London hosts the IPC Athletics World Championships. It makes Gittins' decision to run in London all the more poignant. He says:
"I knew there were wheelchair races, but I hadn't realised the London Marathon had such a connection with the Paralympics. I'd always heard the stories of how my great-grandfather had done so much for disabled sports, but it took on so much more significance for me after the Games. Doing the marathon seemed such a great opportunity to raise money for disabled sport and to honour his memory."
After the Games, Gittins - by his own admission never a sporty type at school - began clocking up the miles, pounding the footpaths alongside the River Wear in Durham where he was studying French and Spanish. Like many before, it didn't take long before he was hooked.
He left Durham last summer after completing his degree and had soon finished his first half marathon in under 90 minutes, raising funds for a voluntary project in Zambia.
Now back in Acton, west London, where he grew up, Gittins is currently working as a medical receptionist in Ealing to save money for a gap-year trip to Costa Rica this summer.
In the meantime, he's up to 19 miles in training and aims to finish the 26.2 miles on 13 April in under four hours. "The knees seem to working ok," he says. "I'll be happy with anything under four hours."
He's also raised £1,450 of his £2,000 fundraising target for the charity, a family cause he's got to know and understand much better in recent months. He said:
"I've been going to Stoke Mandeville myself for children's activity days. It's a really great thing to see. But the volunteers tell me they're facing a lot of funding cuts from the government, so they need support now more than ever. I never knew my great-grandfather," he adds, "but when I hear my mum and grandmother talking about him, they have such fond memories, regardless of the work he did for disabled sport. He was obviously a very, very nice man, and did a lot of good things, so if I can do anything to help his cause, I will feel very happy."
Click here to read more about this year's IPC Athletics Marathon World Cup.
