Britain's highest achieving Paralympian today
Michael Kenny MBE
Now retired British swimmer. Over a 12 year Para-athletic career, has won a staggering 16 gold medals and two silvers over four Paralympic Games - making him the most successful British Paralympian of all time.
He twice retained his gold medals in three swimming events, breaking numerous world records in the process.
Unfortunately Michael's achievements are not fully recognised at this time, because the IPC and the British Paralympic Association were not established until 1989 and the results were not compiled until after Kenny had retired. This is not the only Paralympic champion to have befallen this - Jane Blackburn who has won over 102 medal - 78 of which are on the photo on the front page (the rest were given away by her mother!).
In 1973, Kenny started competing at national level, entering his first Paralympics in 1976 in Toronto. He took part in three 25 m class 1A swimming events (backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle) winning gold in each and breaking the world record in the freestyle and backstroke.
After retirement Mike was asked to give a demonstration in freestyle to young aspiring Paralympic swimmers - during which he broke his own record. Unfortunately as this was an unoffical event - it wasn't recorded and so has missed out yet again .