EALING wheelchair fencer Dimitri Coutya may have left the Rio Paralympics heartbroken, but he’s already back in training and targeting gold at Tokyo 2020.

Ranked world number two in foil going into the Paralympics, the 19-year-old was in the form of his life and expected to challenge for a podium finish in both the epee and foil disciplines.

But despite doing well in the pool phase, he lost in the quarter-final of the epee to eventual gold winner Andrei Pranevich 15-13, and in the quarter-final of the foil to Hu Daoliang, who went on to win silver.

"It was just very frustrating, my dream is to get a gold medal, it just didn't play out the way I hoped it would,” he said.

"On the first day I ended up having the eventual gold medallist in my first knock-out fight, and the second day a similar story occurred with the guy who eventually came second, only losing to his teammate, and that guy has been a Paralympic champion since Athens. 

"Hu Daoliang, I had him in my World Championship final as well, but I am using this as more determination for Tokyo."

But despite the frustration of an early exit, Coutya enjoyed sharing the facilities with some of Britain’s best-known Paralympians.

"I think just the whole village was an incredible experience," he said.

"If you were in the village, you got a laid-back atmosphere but you also got quite a weird feeling because you're in among hundreds and hundreds of athletes who are all performance driven.

“They've all worked for years to get to compete over these two weeks and the amount of focus that brings is quite incredible.

"I was sharing lifts with superstar athletes like Jonnie Peacock, Ellie Simmonds and David Weir in the British block.

“It was incredible to think that now I've trained and competed to a stage where I can be on the same level of or near the same level of eliteness as these people.”

Coutya began competing during his school days at St Benedict’s, taking bronze in both the 2009 Chichester Open and 2011 UK School Games, catching the eye of national coaches.

"The training sessions with Team GB were exciting because I love the sport, I loved it as soon as I started it." he said.

"Back then I was a beginner, I was a nobody and I was fencing these big, experienced fencers and obviously like most things I was not good at it at first.

“I got destroyed, even though the coaches thought I had natural talent. It made me very determined because I wanted to become one of those guys. 

"It made my mind up to continue fencing and keep practicing until I could be the best I could be."

That aim could be completed at Tokyo, now he has returned to training after taking a break after Rio.

"I have a competition in November, so for the three weeks I've been back from Rio I've taken time off to rest,” he said.

"My first session back was on Monday and there was vast improvement between when I finished my exams in June and when I competed in Rio so I think the program that I was following is working very well. 

"I'm continuing this kind of training, my technical training with my coaches, my sparring, and all the gym work that I was doing and If needs be I can always tweak it in the future."

Coutya is also throwing his support behind Marcus Perrineau Daley's Spinal Cord Project, which aims to raise £400,000 for the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital charity by the end of October.

"The hospital has done so much for me in the last 16 and a half years and they've been very supportive,” he said.

“They've made sure I've got the best possible care I could have and to think that it could be expanded and available to more people in similar locations to me is a no brainer, so I instantly snatched up the opportunity to take part in it. 

"It played such an important part in being able to lead a normal life, they just gave amazing support, I never worried about things too much with them and they were always incredibly caring.

"If they are able to expand and bring more beds into care for more people at once - brilliant, if they can get more equipment and more money to fund that equipment to provide a better standard of care for more patients, again - brilliant.

"The campaign are putting up a lot of stories about patients who are under the care of the Spinal Injury Unit and by reading those stories they'll realise how big a part this hospital plays in our lives.

"The story needs to be shared and it needs to be well-known in the next couple of weeks."

Coutya’s charity work doesn’t stop there and neither does his determination to succeed, having recently completed Tough Mudder, a gruelling 10-12 miles through mud and obstacles in aid of AbleChildAfrica.

“That was extreme even for me,” he added.

“What made me willing to do it was just what the charity and what they're trying to achieve out of it.

“With AbleChildAfrica, it gives underprivileged disabled children in West Africa the chance to do sport. That's incredible.

“Sport played such a big part in my life, I know how important it is for a kid living in England to be able to do that.

“But for someone who's even less privileged living in a place like West Africa it can make so much more of an impact.” 

For more information and Marcus’s story watch the campaign video at www.makeitpossible.org.uk/p/SCICexpansion.  

Text RNOH10 to 70070 to donate £10 to the campaign or visit www.makeitpossible.org.uk