To strive for Olympic gold is to dream and not to yield, writes George Frew. And after Britain's marvellous overall performance in the Sydney Olympics, the country's Paralympic athletes will be hoping to emulate that success.

This week sees the start of their games in Australia's sun-soaked first city.

Among the UK's best and brightest hopes will be 51-year-old Abingdon archer Kathy Smith, who has previously finished a highly respectable fifth at both the Barcelona and Atlanta games.

Kathy, a medical secretary at Littlemore's Oxford Clinic, won a team bronze in 1996 when she broke the Paralympic record in the individual ranking round.

Two years later, the World Championship crown was added to her laurels.

Kathy, who has a hip deformity, decided to take up her sport in 1986 after reading an Oxford Mail piece about the Vale of White Horse Sports for the Disabled Group at Wantage.

It inspired her to go down the road which would eventually take her to Sydney this month - and the genuine chance of a couple of precious Olympic golds.

In Oxfordshire, disabled athletes such as Kathy Smith have benefited enormously from schemes which collectively embrace the noble theme which once graced the grand old stadium at Wembley: 'Sport For All'.

Oxsrad - the Oxford & District Sports & Recreation Association for the Disabled, based at Marston, in Oxford - has been in existence for 11 years as an integrated sports centre which encourages both able-bodied and disabled sportsmen. Lottery money helped them extend the premises four years ago.

Who is to say that a future Olympic champion is not already hard at work building the dream and dreaming of gold within its walls?

Across the country, organisations like Oxsrad affiliate with Disability Sport England.

A process of integration has been fostered - and from athletes like Kathy Smith to the ordinary person who just wants to enjoy sport, the positive results have been clear to see.

"We knew we had to mix and meet each other," said a spokesman for Disablility Sport England. "Integration between the able-bodied and the disabled makes everything work far better."

It's an enlightened policy which has taken people like Kathy Smith all the way along the Olympic yellow brick road.

As she said recently: "I'm so glad I decided to take my sport up, although I never, ever imagined that I would be competing at this level."

Kathy Smith can be labelled a winner, whatever the results in Sydney, as can the many other men and women of Oxfordshire who have embraced the Sport For All dictum.

And Olympic rostrums are not the only places occupied by ordinary heroes.

**Follow the progress of Kathy and Britain's other disabled athletes here on This is Oxfordshire.