From court to court: Bristol University law graduate wins silver at 2024 Paralympics

Bristol University alumni Dan Bethell saw his dream become a reality when his sport, Para-badminton, finally made it to the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. 

The double medal winner recently returned to the University of Bristol to reunite with the coaches who were by his side for nearly a decade. Dan studied law as an undergraduate and then stayed on for a law master’s (taken part-time over five years).

Returning to Bristol after Paris 2024, Dan recalled how he was in a lecture when he found out that para-badminton had made it into the Paralympics: “I was watching the news on my phone and I suddenly got up and sprinted out,” Dan recalled. “I was ringing my family, my friends. It was such an exciting moment for me and for para-badminton as a sport.”

Dan finally had the chance to compete in the Paralympics.

“We’d tried to get it into London and Rio but were unsuccessful,” Dan said. “Back then the only funding I had was my University of Bristol sports scholarship, so every year I was spending £15,000 to £20,000 pounds of my own money training and getting to tournaments.”

Dan dedicated 10 years to a sport that was not yet in the Paralympics: “I had always dreamed of the Paralympics but without it being a Paralympic sport I had assumed badminton would always be a hobby,” Dan said. Despite this, he continued to aim for the top levels of Para-Badminton.

When this all changed, he suddenly had funding and could train full-time alongside his Law Degree. With this, Dan would often wake up at 5.30am, train until his lectures started at 9am and then play badminton late into the evenings.

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Dan continued: “I basically lived in the library, lecture theatre and sports hall. I look back now and think ‘how on Earth did I do that during a degree?’ The number of training hours I did then aren’t far off what I do now as a full-time athlete. I absolutely loved my time at uni though.”

Balancing training alongside higher education wasn’t the only obstacle Dan had to overcome. Dan didn’t meet anyone else with cerebral palsy until he was 12 years old, so the Paralympics was vital in providing community and representation at a time when disability was rarely seen on TV.

After committing to the sport and rising through the ranks, Dan achieved silver in Tokyo and Paris, an amazing achievement. He is now aiming for the Los Angeles Games in 2028.

Dan has competed all around the world, in India, Japan, and all over Europe, and as well as winning medals, he won lifelong friends along the way. Two teammates will be groomsmen at his wedding next year. 

Now, he has become the role model that he needed when he was young.

The four-time European para-badminton winner said: “I started seeing these people on TV doing these incredible things at the Paras and I thought ‘I’d really love to be part of that movement’. They inspired me to start playing badminton.

“The reason I kept going is because of the amazing people I met, some who have gone through horrendous accidents and were rebuilding their lives.

“Now I’m in the position at the Paralympics where I’m winning medals. There might be kids out there, very much like me, who are at that age where they are just starting to understand that there is something a bit different about them, and might not know many people with a disability.

“They might see the Paras and want to give it a go. It’s something I take a lot of pride in, being that role model and being able to bring up the next generation.”

Dan beat opponents from New Zealand, Ukraine and Japan in the group stages, defeated a Thai player in the semis and eventually lost to India’s Kumar Nitesh, two sets to one, in a tough final.

Describing Paris, he said: “I’ve never played in an environment like that, it’s just a different scale to anything I’d done before.”

Matt Paine, Performance Sport Manager at the University of Bristol, said: “I still remember Dan walking through the door at open day and saying he wanted to win a para-badminton medal. At the time it wasn’t even a Paralympic sport, but he always had that drive and determination to better himself and better the sport.

When reflecting upon his university experience, Dan said:“Bristol Uni is massive in my story. I wasn’t an athlete when I joined the University – I’d never done any nutrition or strength and conditioning – and Bristol really opened my eyes to what being an elite athlete is like.

“Getting a degree from a top university really set me up for post-athlete life. It also really helped on court knowing that if things didn’t work out in badminton, I’d still have this amazing degree to fall back on.”

But Dan isn’t prepared to stop. His rigorous training will carry on for at least four more years as he heads toward the LA Games.

Dan, who will be 32 in 2028, said: “I thought about retiring after Paris, but I’ve got this finite window to be an athlete. So I’m going for it while my body is just about hanging on!”

You can read the full interview with Dan here.

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Images via The University of Bristol