It was one of the great moments of the London 2012 Paralympics. And for Ringwood runner Bethany Woodward taking silver in the T37 200m was the result of seven years of training.

She had already had the thrill of becoming a world champion when she won gold in the 400m World Championships in New Zealand but says the amount of support at the Paralympics last year made the Games an amazing experience.

“Nobody would have imagined the amount of support us athletes would have at the Paralympics,” said the 20-year-old. “At the World Championships in New Zealand where I won my gold in the T37 400m there were around 400 people watching us.

“Then to be in front of 80,000 in London – outstanding. To walk out onto that track, look up and see 80,000 supporters looking down at you full of warmth – words just can’t describe that!”

A year on from the London 2012 Paralympics Bethany, also known to her fans as Bethy, is hard at work training for the Rio Paralympics in three more years and next year’s Commonwealth Games.

And it’s going well. She took second place at the Anniversary Games last month in the event to mark one year since the nation was gripped by Olympic and Paralympic fever, setting a personal best in the T37 100m race and has also taken another silver at the World Championships in Lyon, France, in the 200m earlier this year. She described getting a personal best as ‘fantastic’, adding that it is definitely not her event.

“I have been dabbling in it here and there and it is really good to compete at a high standard,” she said.

The athlete, who has cerebral palsy, a neurological condition which affects movement and coordination, said that the atmosphere at the Anniversary Games was fantastic, adding: “I think the support has been even better than it was last year at the Paralympics.

“People know more about the sport now and are engaging in it more.”

Having developed her skills at a new distance, Bethany is adding a new string to her sporting bow – by taking on the long jump, in which she will be trying to compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year. “I know that I am an all-round athlete with these results, so if the Commonwealths go well, that should be very exciting. There is no 200m in Rio so I’m going to have a bit more time on my hands.”

Bethany is now based at the Loughborough High Performance Training Centre but she developed her love of athletics when she was growing up in the New Forest.

She was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when she was around one year old and it was noticed that she had problems crawling and her foot was floppy when she was sitting in her high chair.

She grew up in Ringwood, where her parents looked after eight children with various disabilities in a Camphill Community. These are communities for people with disabilities based on Christian ideals.

She spent much of her childhood outdoors running round the New Forest and helping her father look after a small woodland – she even abseiled for the first time aged just three-and-a-half!

As a child Bethany had extensive curative eurythmy treatment – a form of movement therapy which she feels helped her. She took up athletics at secondary school, and says it was hard to join an athletics club as a disabled athlete but high jump coach Tim Highman supported her.

In 2008 her family moved back to the New Forest and her training stepped up a gear. “I was then coached by Todd Bennett, who transformed me physically from a young girl with talent to a young woman who was able to win the IPC World Championship 400m gold medal,” she said.

It was just two years before she won silver at London 2012 that she decided to immerse herself fully in athletics.

Her dad had to persuade her mum that this was a good idea – her medal haul since has proved it was the right decision!

Hopefully the Rio Paralympics in 2016 will see her add more golds to her growing collection.

Portland paralympian Helena Lucas

MBE The past year has been almost too much to take in for Portland paralympian Helena Lucas MBE.

Twelve months ago Helena was preparing to sail for Great Britain in the Paralympic Games in the waters off Portland.

Born without thumbs and a former Olympic contender, she represented her country in the 2.4mR one-person keelboat class.

Now she has a gold medal to her name, a year of memories to treasure including a postbox painted gold near her home on Portland, and plans to sail in the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

She said: “People ask how I can top last year and I really have no idea! I still look back at last year and think ‘wow, that was something else!’ This time last year I was training and looking forward to the Games and now, every now and then I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s real.

“I won the gold medal but there has been so much other stuff too and so many wonderful opportunities that it has brought my way.

“I have met some fantastic people this year and done some amazing things. Getting the MBE was the top, but I also went to Wimbledon and sat in the Royal Box and for me that was a real highlight.”

We speak as she is waiting to board a ferry to take her to Ireland where she will compete in the International Association for Disabled Sailing World Championships in Kinsale near Cork.

“I’m really looking forward to it as I did couple of days’ sailing out here last year,” Helena said.

“I have no expectations, but I’m going out there to do my best and see how it goes. I think it will be quite tricky, but I’m going to stick with it and see how we go.”

Helena is also hoping to get out to Rio to ‘do a recce’ later this year.

“It will be brilliant to get out there and see what the racing area is like,” she said. “I think there might be light winds and that it will be quite tidal – and rather different from Portland.”

However, there is one cloud on Helena’s horizon – her move away from her adoptive home of Portland and back to Southampton at the end of husband Steve’s contract with yachtmaker Sunseeker.

“I have just spent my last night on Portland and I’m really sad about it,” she said.

“In fact we’re both sad because we had two fantastic years on Portland and it has really felt like home, I have some fantastic memories of the place.”

Dorchester’s Paul Blake

Having won silver and bronze in the T36 in the 400m and 800m at last year’s London Paralympic Games, Dorchester’s Paul Blake consolidated his place in the pantheon of great British athletes by claiming silver and gold medals in the 400m and 800m at the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon, France.

“It has been quite a year,” he said with some understatement. “Getting the silver and bronze last year was amazing and I really wanted to get two golds at the world championships this year, but Evgenii Shvetcov, the winner of the 400 was just too strong for me.”

Paul will not be racing in next year’s Commonwealth Games as his discipline is not included, but he will start training for Rio imminently, at the end of his annual break.

“I have just bought myself a flat in Bristol so that is taking up a lot of my time at the moment,” he said.

“It has been a brilliant year and buying my own place has been one of the highlights.

“I have been able to do some amazing things and life is so much better than it had been. It’s really good.”