Hello and welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. Today I have a very special

episode for you made possible by national lottery players. I'm chatting to

Melanie Woods. I don't know if you've seen a racing wheelchair but they are not made

for comfort so when I first sat in one I was like oh my goodness this is awful. I

was also really really bad very slow but I think that was kind of the beauty of

it like I was not good I wasn't like no one said to me oh you're you know you're

gonna be good you're gonna be amazing at this but I was like I can only get

better so I think that was kind of like motivated me to try and get going and

work hard to see how good I could get. What a summer of sport we're having we've

just had the women's euros and now we're in the midst of the Commonwealth Games

we're just being hosted in Birmingham this year thanks to national lottery

players over 40 million pounds has been raised to support the Games 40

million that is amazing to mark the event the national lottery have launched a

campaign celebrating some of the athletes and one of those incredible athletes is

Melanie Woods. Melanie is a Scottish wheelchair racer who competes in the T-54

if you're not familiar with T-54 it's a class which includes people with

spinal cord injuries. In 2018 Melanie was riding her bike when she was hit by a

car the impact shattering her back and pelvis and breaking her leg in three

places. Doctors told her she'd never walk again but having been introduced to

wheelchair racing at her local athletics club she then made her Paralympic's

debut at the delayed Tokyo Games she finished fifth in the T-54 800 meter event

and is undoubtedly one to watch at this year's Commonwealth Games go on

...