Former Paralympics GB wheelchair basketball player to take on Etape Loch Ness

April 14, 2022

Mark Fosbrook is no stranger to sporting success. After representing Great Britain in volleyball at the Atlanta Paralympics and gaining two national records in swimming and indoor rowing, he then went on to represent Great Britain in wheelchair rugby. Classification issues resulted in him missing out on Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, so he decided to pursue wheelchair basketball more; something that he had always played alongside wheelchair rugby.

Mark was part of the World Championship squad in 2014 in South Korea, before winning the European Championships in 2015 and qualifying for the Rio Olympics. A few months before the 2018 World Championships, Mark decided to retire to spend more time with family and to further his career in which he helps get more disabled people into sports.

Throughout all this success, Mark has been a keen cyclist. However, everything changed when he contracted Covid-19 right at the start of the pandemic, and then again last year.

“I got Covid at the end of March 2020. I remember two days before lockdown, being on a train and seeing someone coughing and looking ill. I thought “I hope they don’t have that thing people are talking about”. They must have because a week later I felt awful. Eventually I started to feel better before going rapidly downhill and I eventually made my wife call an ambulance.

“I had empyema (fluid on the chest) resulting in a collapsed right lung and two types of pneumonia. I spent three weeks in hospital and three months off work. At one point it didn’t look like there was much hope for me and I was almost admitted to the ICU. Thankfully, I battled through. However, my fitness took a massive hit and I had to start from the beginning to build it back up,” said Mark.

“Just when I was getting my fitness back, despite being double vaccinated, I got Covid again in October 2021. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as the first time, but it still left me feeling tired and foggy.”

As part of Mark’s recovery from Covid-19, he used the online platform Zwift for indoor cycling training.

“I used Zwift for very short periods before feeling like I needed to get out of the house and go for a ride. Obviously, I couldn’t go hard because I was still recovering so, instead, I went slow. And that was a game changer! I realised how beautiful my surroundings were and how cycling helped me access places I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to go. With my artificial legs I can’t walk far, but cycling doesn’t cause the same stress and, in September 2021, I eventually undertook a 112-mile ride to raise funds for breast cancer.”

For Mark’s next challenge, he is taking on a sportive that will provide him with more stunning scenery – the Etape Loch Ness.

“For 2022, I’ve signed up to several rides where I will be raising funds for the Richard Whitehead Foundation; a newly formed charity desperate for funds, that I have been made a Board Trustee of.”

The Richard Whitehead Foundation works with young disabled people who may be facing physical and emotional challenges to help them reach their potential. The Foundation provides access to life-changing support, information, advice, equipment and opportunities.

“I’m hoping to meet up with friends from Rhino Racing – a team on Zwift – at the Etape Loch Ness. I have made friends from all over the world on the virtual platform but I’ve never met them in person, so I am really looking forward to meeting them for the first time, while taking in the beauty of the loch and really enjoying the day.”

To find out more about Mark’s fundraising for the Richard Whitehead Foundation, and to donate, please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/fossyrides