Sport has long been a mir­ror to so­ci­ety, yet the nar­ra­tive sur­round­ing para-ath­letes has his­tor­i­cal­ly been rel­e­gat­ed to pas­sive sym­pa­thy or what dis­abil­i­ty rights ac­tivist Stel­la Young (2012) termed "in­spi­ra­tion porn," rather than cel­e­brat­ed for elite, high-per­for­mance ex­cel­lence. To ful­ly com­pre­hend mod­ern sports, we must rec­og­nize para-ath­letes not mere­ly as par­tic­i­pants but as vi­tal agents of change, ad­vo­ca­cy, and cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion whose el­e­vat­ed voic­es chal­lenge deep-seat­ed so­ci­etal mis­con­cep­tions about ca­pa­bil­i­ty and re­de­fine what it means to be an elite com­peti­tor. When a para-ath­lete takes the stage, their plat­form be­comes a pow­er­ful mech­a­nism for vis­i­bil­i­ty—de­mand­ing eq­ui­ty in fund­ing, struc­tur­al ac­cess, and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­spect while pro­vid­ing a blue­print of pos­si­bil­i­ty for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. The fol­low­ing in­ter­view dives in­to the lived ex­pe­ri­ence, aca­d­e­m­ic in­sight, and com­pet­i­tive dri­ve of one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pre­mier para-ath­letes, ex­plor­ing the im­mense per­son­al sac­ri­fices re­quired to break na­tion­al records along­side the crit­i­cal role of sport as a ve­hi­cle for self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, sys­temic ad­vo­ca­cy, and etch­ing his name in­to lo­cal sport his­to­ry.

AR: To start, could you in­tro­duce your­self to our read­ers—shar­ing a bit about your back­ground, ed­u­ca­tion, where you are based, and the per­son­al max­im that dri­ves your life and ca­reer?

JB: My name is Jo­han Biput, and I am a Trinidad and To­ba­go para-ath­lete com­pet­ing in the T44 sprint clas­si­fi­ca­tion. I cur­rent­ly re­side in West Trinidad and re­cent­ly com­plet­ed a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence De­gree in Sport Ki­net­ics at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies [UWI], St. Au­gus­tine cam­pus was heav­i­ly in­volved in both sport and stu­dent lead­er­ship.

My jour­ney has been shaped by re­silience. I live with Ju­ve­nile Rheuma­toid Arthri­tis and have un­der­gone bi­lat­er­al hip re­place­ments, but I have al­ways re­fused to al­low my con­di­tion to de­fine my fu­ture. One thing that rep­re­sents me strong­ly is the word “His­to­ry” tat­tooed on my arm. For me, it is a re­minder that noth­ing in life is guar­an­teed or owed to you, every­thing must be earned through sac­ri­fice, dis­ci­pline, and con­sis­ten­cy every time I cross that fin­ish line. I want my sto­ry and my work eth­ic to leave an im­pact big­ger than my­self. Out­side of sport, I am pas­sion­ate about ad­vo­ca­cy, lead­er­ship, and help­ing to grow aware­ness around para-sport and dis­abil­i­ty in­clu­sion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

AR: What sports are you cur­rent­ly in­volved in, and what ini­tial­ly sparked your en­try in­to these dis­ci­plines? Who are the role mod­els that in­spire your jour­ney?

BP: My main sport is Para Ath­let­ics, specif­i­cal­ly the 100m sprint in the T44 clas­si­fi­ca­tion. I al­so have a back­ground in adap­tive fit­ness and Cross­Fit, where I was ranked among the top adap­tive ath­letes glob­al­ly and num­ber one in the Caribbean in my cat­e­go­ry.

I be­came in­volved in para-ath­let­ics af­ter years of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and try­ing to re­dis­cov­er my­self phys­i­cal­ly fol­low­ing surg­eries and chal­lenges re­lat­ed to arthri­tis. Sprint­ing be­came a way to prove to my­self that I could still com­pete at a high lev­el de­spite my cir­cum­stances.

One of my biggest role mod­els is my coach, Olympian and World Cham­pi­on Je­hue Gor­don who is al­so the track coach at the UWI, St. Au­gus­tine cam­pus. Be­yond his ac­com­plish­ments, his dis­ci­pline, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and be­lief in me have had a ma­jor im­pact on my de­vel­op­ment as an ath­lete and per­son.

AR: Could you share more about the na­ture of your dis­abil­i­ty and the spe­cif­ic ways it in­flu­ences your dai­ly train­ing, re­cov­ery, and over­all per­for­mance?

BP: I live with Ju­ve­nile Rheuma­toid Arthri­tis, an au­toim­mune con­di­tion that af­fect­ed my joints se­vere­ly from a young age and even­tu­al­ly led to bi­lat­er­al hip re­place­ments. The con­di­tion im­pacts train­ing, re­cov­ery, mo­bil­i­ty, and pain man­age­ment dai­ly. High-per­for­mance sport al­ready de­mands a lot phys­i­cal­ly, but do­ing it with chron­ic pain and pre­vi­ous surg­eries adds an­oth­er lay­er of chal­lenge. Re­cov­ery and nu­tri­tion be­come ex­treme­ly im­por­tant for me be­cause my body re­quires ad­di­tion­al care and mon­i­tor­ing com­pared to most ath­letes. At the same time, my ex­pe­ri­ences have strength­ened my mind­set and taught me dis­ci­pline, pa­tience, and re­silience.

AR: What are some of your ma­jor para-sport ac­com­plish­ments?

BP: Some of my ma­jor ac­com­plish­ments in­clude win­ning a Sil­ver Medal at the World Para Ath­let­ics Grand Prix in Cali, Colom­bia in 2025, be­com­ing the na­tion­al record hold­er in the T44 100m, and rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in­ter­na­tion­al­ly in para-ath­let­ics.

I was al­so in­duct­ed as one of the first Am­bas­sadors of the UWI St. Au­gus­tine Acad­e­my of Sport in 2025 and served as Cap­tain of the UWI Track & Field Team. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, I was rec­og­nized as UWI Acad­e­my of Sport Male Ath­lete of the Year and Male Track Ath­lete of the Year 2024.

AR: What are some of the ma­jor chal­lenges you ex­pe­ri­ence as a para-ath­lete in TT?

BP: One of the biggest chal­lenges is ac­cess to con­sis­tent fund­ing and re­sources. Para-ath­letes of­ten re­quire spe­cial­ized sup­port sys­tems in­clud­ing clas­si­fi­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties, re­cov­ery ser­vices, nu­tri­tion, equip­ment, trav­el sup­port, and ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion.

There is al­so still a lack of aware­ness sur­round­ing para-sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Many peo­ple do not ful­ly un­der­stand the Par­a­lympic path­way or the lev­el of com­mit­ment and pro­fes­sion­al­ism in­volved in com­pet­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as a para-ath­lete.

AR: Could you tell us about the sup­port sys­tem that an­chors your jour­ney, and the role they play in your suc­cess?

BP: My sup­port sys­tem has played a huge role in my jour­ney. Je­hue Gor­don, con­tin­ues to guide me both as an ath­lete and men­tor. I see my­self as the boy Je­hue Gor­don gave a chance. From hav­ing no in­ter­est in coach­ing, to coach a Par­a­lympic Ath­lete. That con­tin­ued in­vest­ment of his time to me is more than enough for me to do every­thing I can to make him proud. I have al­so re­ceived en­cour­age­ment from UWI, team­mates, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, and in­di­vid­u­als who be­lieve in my vi­sion and what I rep­re­sent for para-sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

AR: What ma­jor up­com­ing com­pe­ti­tions are cur­rent­ly on your hori­zon, and how is your prepa­ra­tion pro­gress­ing?

BP: I am cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for up­com­ing World Para Ath­let­ics com­pe­ti­tions and ul­ti­mate­ly the qual­i­fi­ca­tion path­way to­ward the 2028 Par­a­lympic Games in Los An­ge­les. I was al­so se­lect­ed to at­tend the Com­mon­wealth Row­ing As­so­ci­a­tion coach­ing pro­gramme in Bar­ba­dos, which con­tributes to my de­vel­op­ment be­yond com­pet­ing alone. Prepa­ra­tion has been pro­gress­ing well, but high-per­for­mance sport re­quires con­stant bal­ance be­tween train­ing, re­cov­ery, med­ical man­age­ment, and se­cur­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port.

AR: From your per­spec­tive as both an elite ath­lete and a Sport Ki­net­ics grad­u­ate, what two struc­tur­al changes are most ur­gent­ly need­ed to im­prove the ecosys­tem for para-ath­letes in Trinidad and To­ba­go?

BP: First­ly, I be­lieve Trinidad and To­ba­go needs stronger in­vest­ment in para-sport de­vel­op­ment sys­tems, in­clud­ing ath­lete fund­ing, clas­si­fi­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties, ac­cess to sport sci­ence, and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure.

Sec­ond­ly, greater ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness are need­ed around dis­abil­i­ty sport. Para-ath­letes should be vis­i­ble with­in main­stream sport­ing con­ver­sa­tions, schools, and na­tion­al pro­grams so younger ath­letes with dis­abil­i­ties can see path­ways for them­selves in sport and lead­er­ship. Per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in the Caribbean are most times told what they can’t do more than what they CAN do.