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Glasgow teen chasing Team GB dream after life-changing accident

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Meet the inspiring teen who has found his way back to sport and is setting his sights on Team GB after a devastating injury.

Owen Shannon, from Yoker, was just 10-years-old when an accident at school left him with spinal damage, multiple prolapsed discs, a spinal fracture and nerve root compression.

Having been taken out of education for more than three years, Owen's life completely changed and he was left having to relearn many everyday things.

However, after journeying down to England to take part in an intensive inpatient hospital programme, he was able to find his love for sport all over again.

His mum, Charlene, said: "Owen played Gaelic football, he played basketball, he did Taekwondo. He was very sporty and he lost all of that.

"It was really hard because he lost that part of his identity.

"He then went to a multidisciplinary programme down in Bath, where you are an inpatient for a month and they help you reframe your pain and learn how to live with these big changes that have happened.

"Eventually, he found his way back to some form of sport and he's been thriving ever since."

Owen reached out to Tina Gordon, the inclusivity manager at Basketball Scotland and was invited to give Wheelchair basketball a try.

His intention was to play at a tournament called the junior NBA in order to get a free shirt and then leave, instead he and his team went on to win a junior NBA ring and he was invited to play for Scotland.

Owen has since represented Scotland at U14's, U18's and senior levels.

Now, he is setting his sights on joining the U25's Team Great Britain and he's in the playoffs.

Owen said: "It became the biggest part of my life because I really just to get out of the house.

"Now it's became my basketball team, they're all friends, like my other family, so it's a safe place to just forget about everything else going on.

"Playing basketball probably made it harder to play wheelchair basketball because it's so different and I was trying to bring things that I knew from running basketball into it.

"But it's a different way of playing the sport."

Mum, Charlene, added: "I'm so proud. I can't even put any words.

"It makes me really emotional because he went from doing absolutely nothing and having no friends and just being pretty much stuck in his home to having that whole vast social life and having like a packed calendar."

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