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Tomas Hjert was a former able-bodied ice hockey player in Sweden who switched to wheelchair rugby after becoming paralysed from the chest down when he was injured during a game on the ice.
Then 20 years old, the incident was highlighted a lot in the media, as Hjert had to be taken by an ambulance to the hospital, where he remained for seven weeks.
He then took up wheelchair rugby during his rehabilitation period and stuck with it, becoming one of Sweden’s rising stars to help them win the 2011 European Championships and finish sixth at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
Hjert, who is a 2.5 player, now has the chance to help a young Swedish team build up its programme on the road to Rio 2016 in order to compete with the world’s best teams, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
