A PARALYMPIAN paid a visit to a Witney school to open its brand new fitness suite.

Team GB star Ali Jawad, who won a silver medal in weightlifting at the Rio Paralympics, cut the ribbon and declared the new facility open at a special event at Wood Green School last Friday.

The athlete also delivered a motivational speech to students and parents about his sporting career and struggles against adversity.

Terry Austin, who is leading the pilot scheme for Nuffield Health in his role as head of wellbeing for the school, has helped head of PE Simon Burge develop the new fitness area for students and staff.

The students contributed to raising funds last term with a sponsored walk to transform a store room into an extension of their current fitness suite. This was to accommodate the donation of six new cardiovascular machines to the school from gym equipment firm Cybex UK.

Mr Jawad said: “The new Fitness Suite at Wood Green School is a great facility.

“The Nuffield Health Wellbeing pilot is also a fantastic way of encouraging the pupils to get more active and the Cybex equipment is fantastic. I only wish I had access to somewhere like this when I was at school.”

Mr Jawad has come through much adversity to achieve his Paralympic goals, including a difficult start in life in war-torn Lebanon and battling Crohn’s disease.

Having overcome disappointment in London in 2012, when he missed out on a silver medal and was told by his doctor never to compete again, he continued to persevere until his Rio success earlier this year.

Luke Berry is an account manager at Cybex UK, who donated the equipment for the school’s new fitness suite.

He said: “We have a longstanding relationship with Nuffield Health and the fitness suite at Wood Green School is another site that we are proud to be a part of.

“Increasing physical activity within the education sector is something that we are very passionate about and through this project we are confident that the pupils and staff will experience significant benefits.”

Mr Austin hopes that the visit of Ali Jawad combined with the enthusiasm of the PE team at Wood Green, who give up their own time to run extra-curricular fitness clubs, will increase physical activity levels throughout the school.

Nuffield Health is an organisation which combines hospitals, health clinics, fitness and wellbeing gyms, diagnostic units and a wide range of treatments to form a health and wellbeing service.