William Ellard looking to impress in Paris after incredible breakout year

William Ellard is set to make his Paralympic debut in Paris despite only turning to the competitive side of the sport less than two years ago.

The teenage swimmer has quickly emerged as one of the biggest rising stars in the sport and is sure to be one to watch throughout the ten days of para swimming action at La Defense Arena.

His breakout year in 2023 saw him win three medals on his international debut at the World Championships in Manchester as well as multiple World Series medals.

Explaining how he started his swimming and para-swimming journey Ellard said: “My sister’s two years older than me and she started proper lessons when she was about six years old.

“I think if it wasn’t for her then I wouldn’t have even got into learn to swim really. I then moved to Saint Felix School when I was around 11 or 12 years old and I’ve been there ever since.

“Nick (Thompson), who’s my current coach, his auntie used to be the head coach at the club and knows Jackie Marshall quite well.

“She was on the phone with him once and he said ‘we need more intellectually impaired swimmers’ and she said, ‘we might have one or two.’

“So they spoke to me about it. I didn’t want to do it for the first two weeks because I didn’t know what it could become but they got me into doing it and it’s just been great.

“Jackie first came down to where I was, and got me onto it and I then went up to race and it just changed everything for me really.

“The trials for the World Championships in Manchester was my first ever Para meet so I went there and I still didn’t know what to really expect with para swimming.

“A week later, I got selected for my first team, and I didn’t realise how good para swimming would be. There’s nothing quite like it really, it’s so inclusive and just out of this world, really.”

‘That would be quite special’

Since then he’s gone from strength to strength in 2024, achieving multiple Paralympic nomination times at the 2024 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships to secure his spot in Paris, where he also equalled the Men’s S14 200m Freestyle world record.

Just a few weeks after that he took his maiden European titles with gold in the 200m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly, whilst adding further medals in the 100m backstroke and 200m Individual Medley.

Now he heads to Paris hoping to add a Paralympic medals to his world and European successes.

“Going to my first world champs in Manchester definitely helped me prepare for this.

“The main priority was obviously LA initially, so this it’s sort of like a bonus, and this team’s quite special so hopefully more to come.

“I’m world champion and European champion now. So next thing is, hopefully to be a Paralympic champion.

“My main events the 200m freestyle which is my second event. I’m going in first on that by 1.8 seconds so hopefully, I can just control myself and not think about anyone else, just think about my own race, go for it really, and hope for the best.”

And the S14 swimmer has welcomed the reaction he’s received back home and is looking forward to having his family and friends in the stands in Paris.

“My family and everything had about 20 well done cards and then good luck cards for the Paralympics.

“They’re still at home, on the table, taking up the whole table so it’s a big thing for my whole family.

“It should be a good ride. I got a lot of family going out there, hopefully around 30, 35 people that I know, so it’d be quite a lot of people.

“They’ll be quite high up but hopefully I can see them. They’ve got t-shirts with my face on, I told them to get a pink or something so I could notice them, but they ended up getting white so it might be a bit harder.

“My first event’s the 100m butterfly and I think if I get a medal or gold medal in that, it could be the first for the whole of Paralympics GB so that would be quite special.”

A platform building into Los Angeles

Despite all of his success so far however, Ellard took time to reflect on his time at St Felix School and swimming club as he sets to move over to Norwich Swans following the Games in Paris.

“The school and the swimming club are all part of the same one. I used to go straight to school there and then go straight to swimming.

“I’d finish at five and then swim from five till seven and they really helped me with having some smaller groups in the class.

“I had a group of three including me, so just two other boys. I definitely had that one on one time which definitely helped my swimming journey.

“I think the education part definitely helped me in my swimming terms and I definitely wouldn’t change any of it, I’m really glad I went there.”

Paris will mark Ellard’s Paralympic debut but he’s still focussed on his long term goal of getting himself in the best shape possible for the LA Games in four years’ time.

“The main thing for me is to prepare for LA. I’ll be 22 then so I should be more experienced so that’s the end goal. I’m hoping to go to Commonwealth’s, more world and European championships hopefully leading up to that too.

“It will give me that chance to be on the team more, I’ve only been on the team for just over a year now so getting that experience will make me even better really.”

You can watch Ellard and the rest of the team in action in the pool from Thursday 29 August to Saturday 7 September.