Dan muscles in on bodybuilding prize (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Dan muscles in on bodybuilding prize

4:00pm Friday 27th November 2009

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A HAMPSHIRE bodybuilder is celebrating after being crowned Wheelchair World Champion bodybuilder.

Dan Smith, 33, won the title while competing at the Poland World Juniors and Masters Bodybuilding and Fitness Championships on November 15.

Dan at a previous bodybuilding event in Hampshire

The father-of-one, from Four Marks, impressed a panel of judges with his muscular physique to beat nine other wheelchair bodybuilders from around the world to win the title.

He is the first ever UK wheelchair body builder to win the coveted International Federation of Bodybuilder (IFBB) Wheelchair category.

Mr Smith was invited to join the competition — which attracts around 300 bodybuilders each year — by the UK Bodybuilding Fitness Federation (BFF).

Now he is setting his sights on travelling to America next year to compete as a professional.

Mr Smith said: “The other wheelchair bodybuilders had all won competitions in their countries before.

“They had all been doing it for a while and on my first go I showed them how it was done.

“When I found out I had won I immediately cried, I could not help it. I just could not believe it and the emotions were overwhelming.

“I thought my inexperience would go against me, but I took the advice from the other British bodybuilders on how to pose and it all worked out.

“Winning has put me on cloud nine.”

Mr Smith, who is thought to be the only competing wheelchair bodybuilder in the UK, is now campaigning for the introduction of a wheelchair category at the UK Bodybuilding Fitness Federation.

As reported in the Hampshire Chronicle last August, he was left unable to move his feet after falling 20ft through a factory roof onto a concrete floor three years ago.

He shattered one of his vertebrae and spent the next six months in intensive rehabilitation.

The former amateur bodybuilder has no feeling from the knees down.

He can walk short distances with a pair of crutches, but is essentially confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

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