History People Paralympic athletes Robin Surgeoner Contents Early life Life as a Paralympic athlete Recollections Retirement as a Paralympic athlete Achievements and awards An interview with Robin Robin Surgeoner MBE competed in swimming at the New York 1984, Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games winning nine gold and one bronze medals. He is incredibly proud to introduce himself as a Paralympic Swimmer. He is also an original BPA Committee Member, now arts and empowerment trainer, artist, musician performer, poet, speaker and Sales Director. Robin before his final swimming race at the Seoul 1988 Games ©Robin Surgeoner Early life Robin was born in England on the 13th July 1963 with Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia England. He lived in Hong Kong with his family from 1971 until 1974. Whilst living there, he and his family joined a recreation club where he took up swimming. From a young age, he was a naturally gifted swimmer and often swam in school galas, being just as fast as the able-bodied children. Life as a Paralympic athlete Sport has always been an important part of Robin’s life. Coming from a sporting family, his father ran and boxed for the Army, his sisters ran, swam and played tennis, and his mother competed in Masters swimming into her 80s and played tennis. Swimming was a regular activity which Robin participated in since he was a child. Returning to England in 1974, he joined the Rushford Mallards, where a lot of Paralympians across all sports had trained throughout the years. In 1975-6 Robin went to Stoke Mandeville for the National Junior Championship, which launched his career as a professional swimmer. As a teenager, Robin balanced his swim training with school, often swimming multiple times a week. He started to train more when he went into full-time employment, going to training camps regularly until his retirement after 1992. Robin represented Great Britain in swimming, specialising in Breaststroke, Freestyle and the Individual Medley. Recollections ©Robin Surgeoner One of Robin’s most distinct memories from his sporting career was the opening ceremony at the 1988 Seoul Paralympic Games: …walking out into the opening ceremony of the Seoul Paralympics into a stadium holding something like a 100 or 110 thousand people and then just roaring, just being in there, they talk about the cauldron of the Games, that’s the beginning, and then you are there and then they light the flame and at that point – look, it’s genuinely doing that [showing his arm] –that lighting of the flame, and you’re just like “This is real, we’re here”. And it was my second Games, but as a memory, because that had the crowd, that 100 thousand people, they are there to see you, you’re there as an athlete representing Great Britain, you’re in your uniform, everybody is in their uniform, but you’re in yours, you’re there, you’ve got your Union Jack-based flag and you’re part of that GB team. That’s the kind of memory you can't forget. (Interview with Robin Surgeoner by Klara Janicki, April 2013) Retirement as a Paralympic athlete Robin is an established musician, writer, and poet, performing under the name Angryfish. He is a veteran of the Disability Arts Movement, using his creative talents to extend the representation, participation, and consumption of Disabled People in the arts. I’ve written poetry since I was an angry teenager. And I was an angry teenager in terms of the oppression I faced as a Disabled Person and I’m probably on occasions still an angry almost-50-year old when it comes to dealing with how you’re treated as a Disabled Person. So for me I started writing poetry as another means to feel better about myself or feel better about the way I’m treated or feel better about how I’m perceived makes me feel. So again it’s removing the perception, it’s not about me being a Disabled Person but it’s about how I’m made to feel as a Disabled Person…So I’ve used my poetry very much as a kind of cathartic process, as a kind of artist-heal-thyself role and I actually don’t think it’s fundamentally that different from the sport in the sense that it’s a way of focusing. (Interview with Robin Surgeoner by Klara Janicki, April 2013) Robin has written a wide range of songs, short stories and plays which have political undertones to them. Since 2001, Robin has used his leadership and performance skills to develop creative training programmes, ranging from Equality and Diversity to Empowerment Through Song under the banner of ‘Permission to Speak’ and more recently, ‘Permission to Perform’. In 2017, he founded and produced the ‘Why? Festival’ in Birmingham to establish development and performance opportunities for Disabled Artists. Throughout the years, Robin has promoted new Disability and Diverse Arts, whilst balancing this with his career as a consultant trainer, international athlete and coach. As an accomplished musician, Robin has toured all over the UK, having music used by the BBC, collaborating with other artists, and running an indie record label. ©Robin Surgeoner He also uses his sporting experience to work with disabled children, coaching basketball and swimming, and advocating for disabled people’s rights in demonstrations. Achievements and awards Robin competed in the 1984 Paralympic Games, which were jointly hosted by the United States and United Kingdom, in New York and at Stoke Mandeville. He won gold medals at three different distances in the C4 freestyle and a further gold in the 50 m backstroke and the 4 x 50m Freestyle relay. He subsequently participated in the Seoul 1988 Paralympic Games, winning three gold medals in the C4 freestyle and one gold in the 100 m breaststroke. Robin then competed in the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona, finishing fourth in both the 100 m breaststroke SB5 and 4 x 50 m Medley Relay S1-6. He won the Bill McGowan Trophy for Disabled Sports Personality of the Year in 1988, and in the same year he received an MBE for his services to disability sport. Robin with the Bill McGowan Trophy and Olympic swimmer Adrian Moorhouse MBE ©Robin Surgeoner An interview with Robin Surgeoner Interviewer Klara Janicki, April 2013 Robin talks about preparing for his races at the 1988 Seoul Paralympics I’d go into the venue; I’d warm up in a very insular focused way…Then I’d go into the holding room; each time I’d have my swimming cap, dark mirrored sunglasses on and headphones playing alternative music, to keep my focus and prevent others from seeing me. Download a pdf of Robin's full interview here Extract from the interview where Robin describes his memories of taking part in the Seoul Games and how he sees the development of Paralympic sport..... Let’s go back to some more pleasant memories. What is the most important memory for you throughout your sporting career? My most important memory, you should have asked me that yesterday and I could have thought about it...I’ve got so many memories, I’ve got a 20-year span of competitive swimming, at least twelve years at an international level. Finding a memory that really sticks out is quite difficult because I’ve got so many amazing memories. But for me and, thinking about it now I can get that tingly hair-standing up moment, is walking out into the opening ceremony of the Seoul Paralympics into a stadium holding something like a 100 or 110 thousand people and then just roaring, just being in there, they talk about the cauldron of the games, that’s the beginning, and then you are there and then they light the flame and at that point–look, it’s genuinely doing that [showing his arm]– that lighting of the flame, and you’re just like “This is real, we’re here”. And it was my second games, but as a memory, because that had the crowd, that 100 thousand people, they are there to see you, you’re there as an athlete representing Great Britain, you’re in your uniform, everybody is in their uniform, but you’re in yours, you’re there, you’ve got your Union Jack-based flag and you’re part of that GB team. That’s the kind of memory. I can replay you – from sitting outside, you have to sit outside forever, waiting, getting queued up in teams. You can imagine 3000-4000 athletes and support staff - they’ve got to get you all marshalled somewhere - ready to march in in the correct alphabetical order, so your kind of there, but I can see myself sat in the playing field outside of the stadium looking at the five rings on the end of the stadium which we could see, and the buzz, the anticipation of what it’s all about, and you’re talking to anybody and everybody because you’re all there for the same life-changing experience. And going in and that flame being lit and then the planes go whoosh through the sky across the top of the stadium. Awesome! Can you tell me how you perceive the trend, the development of the Paralympic sport movement? My understanding of the Paralympic movement is that it started small but had its own identity. If you go right back to its beginnings at Stoke Mandeville it had its identity as a way, initially, of rehabilitation or reintegration. I think in some ways the idea of reintegration and rehabilitation has changed because the whole concept of what those words mean now to what they did 60 years ago is different in terms of the role that Disabled People do now play in society. The Paralympic movement itself has gone from strength to strength. I remember that in 1988 and 1992 there’d been massive arguments because the Paralympic team weren’t allowed to use the Olympic logo – and that’s still the case because the Olympic logo is the trademark of the Olympics and not the Paralympics. There were times where people would say “Shouldn’t we be swimming in the Olympics, should it not be the same, should the Olympics be inclusive?” References http://www.angryfish.co.uk/ http://www.angryfish.co.uk/robin_surgeoner_artist_cv.html https://disabilityarts.online/magazine/opinion/robin-surgeoner-building-platform-disability-diverse-arts/ https://www.gilbeyfilms.com/team/robin/ https://www.paralympic.org/robin-surgeoner-0 https://www.paralympicheritage.org.uk/robin-surgeoner https://www.paralympicheritage.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=c3817abb-655d-46d2-8b3d-9d00f0518579 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Surgeoner http://www.whyfestival.co.uk/the_why__festival.html Manage Cookie Preferences