Wheelchair basketball star Katie Morrow looking to book spot at 2024 Paris Paralympics

​Within two years she was winning medals on the international stage with Great Britain at underage and senior level and in 2016, Morrow was the youngest member of the squad that travelled to Rio for the Paralympics.

After winning a silver medal with Great Britain at the recent U25 World Championships, Morrow is hoping to make the squad for next summer’s Paralympics in Paris.

The Ballymena native explained why she had to switch from the pool to the basketball court.

“I swam for a couple of years then I got introduced into basketball in 2013 and I have been playing it ever since,” she said. “In swimming my times weren’t improving in competitions and my mum had been recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, then the gene I have is spastic paraplegia.

“I got tested and it came back I had it.

"That is why I struggled with getting an improvement in my times.

“I was invited along to a Disability Sport NI swimming gala and got introduced to basketball through that.

“That’s how it all started.

“It was the first DSNI event I’d ever been to and my mum is a talker!

"She talks to everyone no matter who you are or what you are doing.

“So, her and Phil Robinson (Wheelchair Basketball Performance Officer) were having a big chat.

"Phil was trying to get more people involved in wheelchair basketball.

“I joined the Knights wheelchair basketball team and training was every Tuesday and Thursday.”

Success on the international stage came quickly for Morrow.

“I started playing when I was 13,” she explained. “I had my Great Britain debut when I was 15 at the U25 World Championships in China.

"There were a few competitions in between that and then it was the 2016 Rio Paralympics.

“I got a gold medal in China, and it definitely was a whirlwind – I was still in the middle of my GCSE’s.

"It was quite a lot at that age but it was a great experience just being able to travel the world.”

Morrow went into the GB senior side and won a bronze medal at the 2015 European Championships.

“I joined and kind of went straight into both U25 and senior, that was our qualifier for Rio, so I feel like that was a big thing in Worcester, we were more centralised at that point and it was a really big achievement for us.”

Morrow was 16 when she headed to Rio.

“The day before I flew out, I got my GCSE results and it is quite ironic because the only one I failed was PE,” she laughs. “I was going to a Paralympics the next day – I laugh at it now.

“Looking back, I was 16, I was the youngest ever player in the basketball side to reach that level at such a young age and at that point I was the very first Northern Ireland athlete until James MacSorley came along, so I felt having to soak all that in was quite a lot.

“We finished fourth and we are the most successful team to date and obviously Paris is coming up now.

“Thinking back, I was 16 now I’m 24 its scary that the time has flown by but is always going to be something that I treasure and remember for the rest of my life.”

Morrow took time away from the game and missed Tokyo 2020 to study for her degree in Forensic Psychology.

She returned to the game and joined Cardiff Met Archers in 2021 for the inaugural British Wheelchair Women’s Premier League.

“That was my first introduction back because when I went to uni and I had two or three years completely out of it,” she said. “In my final year I decided to take the step and go back into it.

"That was the first Premier League season they had – we are now going into our third.

“I felt like I had to shake off the nerves the first couple of games.

"I have really been enjoying it, the girls are great and it was great just to be involved again.”

Team NI Women missed out on qualification for the 3x3 wheelchair basketball at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, but preparations are well underway to make 2026.

“That was the first time it was included in the Commonwealth Games,” she added. “We’re in the process of prepping for the 2026 Commonwealth Games so it is all go.

“We are having camps ever so often throughout the year.

"It is a completely different game to the 5x5 that we are used to and it is adapting to that.”

Morrow wants to book her spot on the team for France and is hoping to go to the Paralympics with her good friend James MacSorley, who won a bronze medal in Tokyo.

“I think it is just working hard, putting the head down, knowing what I need to do and hopefully be part of that selected team,” she said. “I’ve known James since we started.

"We played at Knights, we have been in each other’s pockets you could say, we train together at Jordanstown, we’d have conditioning, we’d have summer camps together.

“He’s is playing aboard and that is the next step that I would want to take.”