Hear from two or our IPF Members - Paralympians Jack Smith and Kieran Flynn - as they prepare to fly to Brazil to compete for Great Britain in the 2026 World Wheelchair Rugby Championships.
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While they wouldn’t ever tell you this themselves, Jack and Kieran are also two of the best players in the world in their positions - Jack as a .5 and Kieran as 2 pointer.
See what they have to say about GB's chances, their key opposition, why they love Wheelchair Rugby and what drives them each day...
How many World Championships and Paralympics do you now have under your belt?
Jack: This will be my second World Championships, and I’ve competed in two Paralympics – Paris where we finished fourth, losing to Australia in the bronze medal game, and Tokyo where we won gold.
Kieran: I’ve been representing GB since 2021, so I've competed in the 2022 World Championship in Denmark and the last Paralympics in Paris.
Are you two of the older ones now?
Jack: I am! I'm deemed as a veteran now at the age of 35!
Kieran: I’m 34. In our long squad, we have a player who is 17 and the youngest player in our 12-person travelling squad is 19, so it’s quite a wide age range.
The 2026 World Championships are only a week away. You’ve been drawn alongside Denmark, Colombia, Germany, Japan and France in the group stages, it sounds like a jam-packed schedule!
Jack: It certainly is! We land in Sao Paolo on 15 August and then our games get underway on 18th. We have two matches a day for the first two days, at around 9am and 5.30pm local time I think, then it’s one match each day until the quarter finals which are on 21 August.
Games consist of four eight-minute quarters, but general run times are around an hour and a half per game because the clock stops when the ball's out of play.
World Championships are always the longest tournaments, with the most teams and most games. There are 12 teams competing in this month's World Championships, whereas there are eight in the Paralympics.
It will be full on and a bit of a war of attrition, but we’re looking forward to the challenge and can’t wait for the Championship to get started.
Kieran: It’s going to be a really tight pool stage. From our perspective, we’re quite pleased there’s a strong European presence within our pool. Next year we have the European Championships and we need to finish top two in that to qualify for Paralympics, so obviously the more we can play these teams the better. I guess we’re looking at the pool stage almost as a mini-European Championships.
Tell us what you and we should expect from the pool stages
Jack: If I'm honest, anyone can beat anyone really. We recently had Denmark over for a camp and played four games against them. We won three and lost one, but none of those games were blowouts so that should be really competitive.
We always have a great game with France when it often seems to be one or two tries in it. We don't really know a lot about Colombia as we've never played them, so we’re going off footage from a year ago. So, they're a bit of an unknown really.
Kieran: Germany are also up and coming. They’re developing very quickly. They have a new high pointer which has added another string to their bow, and they’ve had some classification changes which are beneficial to them.
We last played them in Australia and beat them, but they were without one of their more influential players. It’s always a tight game when we play them. We’re certainly not taking anybody in the group lightly. Every team there deserves to be there and it's going to be a great tournament.
Wheelchair Rugby has evolved so much in the last eight years or so. In the past you’d often get blowout games, whereas now those games just don't exist. Anybody can run anybody else close and that's certainly what you want as a neutral, watching world class athletes compete against others.
Who are the key opponents to keep an eye out for?
Jack: I'd say Japan are overall tournament favourites. They won gold at the Paris Paralympics, and the squad has changed very little since then. Alongside Japan, Australia and USA are always good. I’d say they’re probably your top three.
Brazil are also really firing at the minute. They have a really good high low line (so they play two three-point fives and then two low pointers) which includes one of the most dominant players in the world right now – Gabriel Feitosa. He's just so quick, people can't really figure out how to defend him. Brazil are so quick and powerful so they’re hard to play against.
Kieran: You’d be foolish to say anybody other than Japan given they’re the current Paralympic Champions and their squad has remained pretty much the same since.
Australia will also be strong. Ryley Batt their high pointer just came down in classification which has opened up a number of different line-ups for them. The US haven’t been to any major tournaments recently with a full-strength squad, so they’re very much an unknown as team. But from what we know about individual players they are right up there.
So, I agree with Jack, they’re probably the top three going into the week.
Photo credit: Wheelchair Rugby Australia & Joep Buijs Photography
What are GBs chances?
Jack: You could say we’re underdogs for the tournament. We’re in a bit of a development phase at the minute. We have quite a young squad so it’s important to get experience as we continue to build towards the LA Paralympics in two years’ time. That’s like the ultimate end game but having said that, our squad is packed with exciting young talent, so if it all comes right on the day, who knows what could happen this month.
We've got some really good high pointers like Stuart Robinson and a couple of young guys Tyler Walker and Oliver Wightman who’s only 19 and Tyler's 22. Kieran’s up there with one of the best in the world as well. So, we’ve got a great mix really, of exciting young potential and then some older heads in there as well.
Kieran: I'd probably say we have an outside chance of a medal. On our day we could win a medal, but with the format of the World Championships there’s a quarter final so you might do really well in the group stage but lose your quarter final and your chances of a medal are gone.
I guess it's just about stringing consistent performances together and if we perform well then the results will take care of themselves. It just has to be game by game as much of a cliche as that is!
After the Paris Paralympics we lost quite a few senior players. We've still got the likes of me, Jack and a couple of other senior players and then we've got a lot of new talent and it’s important to give them the opportunities to develop. That will stand us in good stead for the future - sometimes there has to be a little bit of short-term pain to realise the team's potential.
This is the second biggest tournament outside of the Paralympics, so we want to perform and do well this month but ultimately, it's another stepping stone on tour journey to LA 28 and trying to put ourselves in the best position we can be in two years’ time.
Photo credit: Wheelchair Rugby Australia & Joep Buijs Photography
How has GB’s form been coming into the tournament?
Jack: Our form has been a bit hit and miss coming into the tournament. When we play well, we feel like we can compete with anyone. It's just finding consistency and eliminating mistakes. If we can find that consistency when we’re out there, it should be a good tournament for us.
Kieran: I’d agree, our form has been mixed. We went to Australia in April and finished second. We put in some great performances there and were right in with a chance in the final before losing by three points. Then at the Canada Cup in June, we finished fifth out of six so we massively under performed.
That inconsistency sums us up a little bit at the moment, which I guess is what you expect when you've got athletes that are trying to develop and are fresh to the sport. At times they give blinding performances, but as a team we need to consistently back up those performances.
Remind us how GB have fared in recent World Championships
Jack: During the last World Championships, we had a shocker. We lost one of our key players to injury a few weeks before the tournament and it impacted us badly. We finished 7th out of eight which was really poor considering the talent we had.
Kieran: We massively underperformed there. That will be a driving force for this year. The messaging from us senior players has been, while we don’t want to put pressure on anybody, we can’t be finishing 7th in tournaments, that’s not acceptable.
For people who haven’t watched wheelchair rugby before – give us the big sell, why should we all be tuning in?
Jack: It's fast-paced, lots of action, people falling out of wheelchairs, what more do you want?!
Kieran: It’s just such a high-octane game with full contact between chairs. It’s fast, ferocious and full of energy, but it's also very tactical so little tweaks can make a huge difference. You have a lot of disabilities on show, and each classification has a role to play on court. So it’s a game for everyone.
What is it you love the most about the sport that has kept driving you for so many years?
Jack: So many things really. There’s the team aspect of it. There’s the fact it’s the only real contact sport available. Another of the beauties of wheelchair rugby is that we’re the only contact sport that can be played mixed.
We have two women in our squad - Faye West and Hannah Bucys - who are brilliant. More and more teams, maybe every nation now, have women and men in their squad which is good to see.
I guess the main driving factor for me over the years, like any sport, is that constant want to improve. Just to get better at something.
Kieran: Similarly, for me, it’s just the ability to get better. That’s certainly the driving force behind training and competing, that burning desire to keep proving myself, to keep bettering myself and working towards that collective goal with teammates. And obviously making those close to you outside of rugby proud as well.
What are you expecting from the whole environment and Sao Paolo experience?
Jack: We went there for a training camp last year and it was interesting. The food side was a bit of a challenge, so there will be a few obstacles around how we manage that and avoid hitting the vending machine all the time!
Kieran: The Brazilian Paralympic and Olympic facility is phenomenal. It’s world class and everybody you meet is so hospitable and they carry that South American passion. The same facility hosted the Americas Zonals and by the looks of the footage they got a really good crowd who were really loud so I’m hoping that should be the case again.
Do you know if you’ve got a decent roommate?
Jack: I’ve actually got three! There are four of us sharing a room. I’m in with Kieran, Gav Walker and Stu Robinson, so it's not a bad room at all. We're all a little bit older and get on well.
Kieran: They’re all great lads and good friends. Me and Jack have roomed together for four or five years now on tour. The four of us have also shared an apartment at the Paralympics. We’re all part of the leadership group within the squad, so we talk everything on court and off court and enjoy each other’s company.
Who are some of the biggest characters in the squad?
Kieran: Harri Jenkins is probably the biggest character, he’s always looking for his next prank or joke. Tyler Walker is another loud one who loves a joke and is always getting amongst it.
Jack: You can't shut either of them up! I don't know how they do it, but they have non-stop energy. Harri’s always singing and laughing. You can hear his laugh for a mile away. They’re great to have in the squad and bring good vibes, but you don’t want to be around them all day at our age!
Kieran: We tell them to keep the fun and games away from us and we’ll go to find them for the fun, then come back to our room for a bit of peace!
On behalf of everyone connected to the RFU Injured Players Foundation, good luck to you and all at Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby for the World Championship campaign.
Jack: Thanks. Also, a big thank you from me for the Injured Players Foundation’s continued support. The IPF funded my current rugby chair and have recently funded four new wheels for rugby too. Without the support of the IPF, I wouldn’t be able to compete at the highest level.
Kieran: The IPF has also just paid for a new chair for me too, which is on its way, and have helped with so much over the years. As with all IPF Members, they’ll always do their best to help if you need something and we’re both looking forward to catching up with other IPF Members in the box at the Allianz Stadium for England New Zealand.
Photo credit: Wheelchair Rugby Australia & Joep Buijs Photography
