The Commission
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Mandip Sehmi b.1980 and Andy Barrow b.1979 with Jagtar Sehmi b.1956
Mandip Sehmi (left) and Andy Barrow play in the GB wheelchair rugby squad.
Sehmi broke his neck in a car crash that left him paralysed from the chest down. During rehabilitation at Stoke Mandeville he was introduced to wheelchair rugby. He currently trains in London and in 2011 competed in the US wheelchair rugby league, playing with Arizonan team Phoenix Heat. Sehmi’s mother Jagtar Sehmi was born in Punjab, India and moved to the UK to marry in the 1970s. Barrow broke his neck during a game of rugby union aged seventeen and took up wheelchair rugby. He has been a member of the national squad since 1999. As team captain, Barrow competed with Sehmi in the Beijing Paralympic Games in 2008.
‘We are athletes first, disabled second and not just guys in chairs having a go.’ Andy Barrow
