A 16-year-old athlete who suffers from partial blindness has won gold in the 100 metres at the Paralympic School Games in Brazil.
Londoner Souleyman Bah ran the race in 11.87 seconds, 0.2 seconds faster than a Brazilian who came second.
The games, which have been held for the past nine years, involved 1,200 young people competing across 10 sports to prepare them for adult events.
The Great Britain team won 15 golds this year at the competition in Natal, Brazil.
Souleyman, who lives with his mother and four siblings in Surbiton, said he was now aiming to represent Great Britain at the Tokyo games in 2020.
“It was amazing to win — a real experience of a lifetime. It was my first international experience and I had never been to Brazil before,” he said.
“I was just so happy to get it after these last four years of training. It gives me hope for the future that there’s more to come.”
The student, who already held the world under-17 record for his category of disability, was also GB team captain in Brazil.
Souleyman, who is studying for four A-levels at Hollyfield School in Surbiton, said: “My school is very supportive. It’s very hard doing training and essays because it takes more time for me to do them because of my sight. Life in general is a struggle really.”
The athlete has suffered from retinitis pigmentosa since birth, a condition which means he cannot see out of one eye, only partially out of the other and has no peripheral vision.
He said he has been the fastest runner in his class since primary school and joined Kingston Athletics Club, who he still trains with, to develop his talent. He is supported by the Royal London Society for Blind People.
Souleyman hopes to emulate the success of his idols, paralympians Jason Smyth and Jonnie Peacock, if selected for the Tokyo games.
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