John McFall

Early years and education John McFall was born on 25 April 1981 in Frimley, Surrey, in England. Between 1994 and 1997, he attended school at Millfield in Street, Somerset, where as a teenager he was a runner and hockey player. In August 2000, while on a gap-year trip to Ko Samui, Thailand, after his A-levels,

He was flown to a hospital in Bangkok, but as he had damaged his lower right leg so severely, it had to be amputated above the knee after three days. Upon returning to the UK, he spent about seven weeks undergoing rehabilitation at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton, London. However, he found running difficult and uncomfortable as his prosthesis was not designed for the purpose, and frequently got damaged. Upon making inquiries at the Federation of Disability Sport Wales (FDSW), he was introduced to carbon-fibre running "blades". the same year.

Athletics career

With his sprinting prosthesis, McFall began training with an ex-Paralympian. In early 2005 former Welsh international athlete Darrell Maynard took over as his coach and he began training with an able-bodied squad. He was selected to represent Great Britain at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) European Championships which took place in August 2005 in Espoo, Finland, having competed in sport class T42 (single amputation above the knee). McFall was subsequently placed on a funding programme, enabling him to become a full-time athlete. Following his appeal for the return of the prosthesis, he received a telephone call from two youths who said they "might be able to recover the lost leg" but asked "What is it worth?" Infuriated, McFall refused to pay anything and asked the youths whether they had considered what being an amputee was like. After McFall agreed to take no further action against them, the youths anonymously returned the prosthesis to the Institute a week later. McFall went on to achieve a personal best of 8.55 seconds in the 60 metres race, and 28.21 seconds in the 200 metres on 4 February. The following year, on 13 May 2007, McFall struck gold and achieved a competition record time of 26.84 seconds in the 200 metres in his début at the Visa Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, England; he also garnered a silver in the 100 metres. Subsequently, on 6 July 2007, he was placed third at the Meeting Gaz de France in Paris, part of the ÅF Golden League.

McFall achieved his personal best time (as at 30 May 2008) in the 100 metres of 12.70 seconds by winning silver at the Bayer International Track and Field Competition in Leverkusen, Germany, on 10 August 2007. Later that year he was champion in both the 100 metres and 200 metres at the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation (IWAS) World Wheelchair and Amputee Games in Chinese Taipei held from 9 to 19 September 2007. In 2007, he was ranked first in the world for the 200 metres, and second for the 100 metres.

McFall, who has been called "one of the fastest men in the world over 100m and 200m in the class of above-the-knee amputees", made his Paralympic début for Great Britain in the 100 metres (T42) at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing. After a false start, he took the bronze medal in 13.08 seconds behind Canada's Earle Connor (12.32 seconds) and Germany's Heinrich Popow (12.98 seconds). Despite McFall's plans to retire from athletics after his 2009 season to study medicine, he did not rule out competing at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. He has said, "It would be nice to do 2012. I'm interested in cycling and rowing, and I won't qualify as a doctor till 2013, so it wouldn't be impossible. We'll see. It's that constant striving for excellence, the hunger to do more."

ParalympicChallengeDuderstadt, Lower Saxony, Germany

International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World ChampionshipsAssen, Netherlands

World Athletics Championships for the DisabledStadskanaal, Netherlands

IWAS World Wheelchair and Amputee GamesChinese Taipei

[Not yet ascertained]Berlin, Germany

IPC Open European ChampionshipsEspoo, Finland

2022 ESA Astronaut Group On 23 November 2022, McFall was announced to be one of the reserve and subsequently, project astronauts in the 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group. The ESA carried out a feasibility study on him flying to space and what needed to be adapted for disabled people. The ESA had used the term "parastronaut" to describe an astronaut with disabilities, but McFall has rejected the term.

In June 2026, McFall participated in the ESA CAVES 2026 course held in the Matese mountains in the Italian Apennines, with his astronaut collegues Rosemary Coogan (ESA), Tracy Caldwell Dyson (NASA), Ayu Yoneda (JAXA) and NASA astronaut candidate Ben Bailey.

Personal life Following the 2008 Paralympic Games, McFall returned to the UK from Beijing overland via the Trans-Siberian Railway. McFall hopes one day to take up his childhood plans of running across the Sahara Desert, crossing the Atlantic Ocean by rowing boat, and obtaining a free-fall parachute licence.