A Merseyside martial artist became the second man in his family to win a Paralympic medal at Paris 2024, but just two short months on, he has been forgotten again.
Daniel Powell, 33, went all the way to the final match of the 90kg category at the Paralympic Judo competition in September and he claimed a silver medal for Team GB.
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Now, the man that was once supported by his entire community must rely on himself again as Powell has returned to work with his Olympic achievements behind him.
The visually impaired athlete from Halewood supports himself with his own business, GNR8 Academy, a gym tasked at creating a sense of community by hosting affordable classes.
Powell said: “After competing in 2012, it felt like a massive dump. Mentally I really struggled”.
He said that as soon as he finished competing the only thing he had to focus on was training again for Rio four years later. So he built the GNR8 Academy himself as a “safety net” outside of Judo.
“You need to make sure that your life isn’t the be-all and end-all about sport,” he said.
“Nobody gets to 60 years old and stills competes at that level so you need to lay the foundation now to make sure you have something going on in life after sport. I work full time in this job but it doesn’t feel like that because I love it.”
He went on to say that the public can do more to help these athletes by following their stories through social media and maintaining a “continuity of support”.
He said that: “Investing in these athletes’ stories massively helps. It can make us keep going.
“It is amazing that I can post a picture of me winning my medal and it will have hundreds of likes on it and hundreds of comments. Then suddenly it’s back to reality, but a continuity of support like this is really great.”
Daniel started martial arts at 10-years-old at Greenbank Sports Academy by Sefton Park. He followed in the footsteps of his dad, Terry Powell, who won a bronze medal at the 1996 Paralympics.
The Judoka felt that the stars finally aligned ahead of this year’s Paris Paralympics, as previously he thought that success in the sport would never happen to him as he dislocated his elbow just six weeks before the Tokyo games in 2021.
Now he can sit with a medal on his mantelpiece as the man with the Liverpool skyline tattooed to his leg, having achieved his Olympic dream.
