Reid excited by chance to make British debut on home soil

By Holly Hamilton, Sportsbeat

STEFANIE Reid insists she made the right decision to swap the Maple Leaf of Canada for the Union Jack of Great Britain as she enjoys life at the Lee Valley High Performance Centre.

COUNTING THE DAYS: Stefanie Reid cannot wait to make her first international appearance for Great Britain on home soil at the Paralympic World Cup in May

New Zealand-born Reid finally received British citizenship at the start of the year courtesy of her parents' nationalities and jumped at the opportunity to come and train at the centre.

After only taking up athletics at Ontario's Queen's University at the age of 19, the sprinter and long jumper showed her raw talent at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games just four years later, taking bronze in the 200m.

And Reid is relishing the chance to pull on the British vest when she competes for her new country for the first time at the Paralympic World Cup to be held in Manchester in May.

"I'm really excited about my first meet for Great Britain in two months and it will be even more enjoyable because it's here in the UK," she said.

"It was a high performance decision to move here because at the moment the programme in Great Britain is just so great right now and I couldn't turn down the opportunity they gave me.

"My parents asked me if I could see myself standing on the podium at London 2012 and feel proud to be British and I could see myself doing that.

"I'm in an unusual situation because I have citizenship for three different counties - Canada, New Zealand and Great Britain - and there was some backlash in Canada when I switched to Great Britain.

"People just can't understand how I can be proud to be a citizen of three different countries but I'm really honoured to compete for Great Britain because it's a wonderful country and I'm looking forward to taking on this challenge."

The 25-year-old credits her new-found confidence to the centre's performance director Dan Pfaff, who is coaching Reid alongside long jumper Greg Rutherford, hurdler Tasha Danvers and high jumper Martyn Bernard.

And with London 2012 on the horizon, Reid is embracing her new training programme and taking advantage of the state-of-the-art medical facilities available at Lee Valley.

"The main reason I moved over here was the new coaching staff they have got in and especially Dan Pfaff," Reid added. 

"My training programme with Dan has been really great and it has been much more intensive than in the States.

"The methodology of my training is different as Dan has very set ideas on how to train various parts of the body.

"My body has definitely noticed a difference and when I first got here I had lots of tests with various machines and we found some imbalances which I have been working on and correcting.

"I've never done this kind of training before so I'm excited to see where it's going to take me."