Athletics : This boy is a bit special; ALLAN OVERCAME DISABILITY TO BEAT ABLE-BODIED ATHLETES.

Byline: EUAN McLEAN

ON FIRST impression Allan Stuart seems your average bloke. Down to earth, no pretence or arrogance about him.

You might even call him an average Joe. But you'd be wrong. This boy is special in every sense of the word.

'Special' in the way kids with learning disabilities are often referred to.

But what's even more special is his talent as an athlete. So much so that he has overcome the hurdles of his disability to beat able-bodied track stars at their own game.

Last year the Shettleston Harrier became the first athlete to make the transition from Paralympic disciplines to compete for Great Britain's able-bodied team in a major championship, the European under 23 titles.

It's been a remarkable journey to say the least. This is the 400 metre runner who used to have a coach standing halfway round the track to REMIND him to keep going so short was his attention span. The guy who came out of school in Glasgow with nothing but crushed confidence because kids are told their life is over if they do not pass maths and English.

In track terms he's a flat racer who has had to jump hurdles before he can compete with the rest. But while his brain is a little slower to work out the tactics of a race, this 22-year-old's legs have become that little bit faster to compensate.

Allan said: 'It's difficult to describe my disability. It's a mixture of dyslexia and other things which makes it harder to learn . It takes my brain longer to process information.

'My reaction times can be a bit slower than everyone else's which has caused problems on the track. In a race my concentration wouldn't be as good as the others so my tactics would be affected.

'For example, I would run the first 200m either too slow or too fast so I needed to have a coach standing halfway round the track telling me what I was supposed to be doing. I just needed that extra voice to tell me to ease up or get a move on for the last 200.

'That happened at the Euro under 23s. I went through the first half in a personal best then died off in the last 50 because I'd pushed too hard. The excitement and adrenaline rush of being at such a big event made me mistime everything.

'That's not such a problem now because I've run the race so often it's programmed into my brain. It takes me longer to learn what to do but now that's it's second nature I don't have to concentrate on what to do next.

'I've been to the Paralympics and won a silver medal but don't consider myself a disabled athlete any more and I know other competitors don't think that way about me either. In fact, a lot of them joke there's nothing wrong with me.'

That's a common view when it comes to dyslexia because you can't see the disability. If someone can't walk you give them a wheelchair. If they're blind you realise the difficulties they must face.

But when the problems are not clear to see it's harder to understand what Stuart wrestles with and it made school a nightmare.

He struggled in class but quickly found he was good at PE. Very good in fact.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Allan's success is that he took up athletics only seven years ago. Before then he was a skilled swimmer about to be picked for Scotland when he turned his back on the sport.

He said: 'When I was 15 I won a race at school so my PE teacher got me involved with a running club and I loved it. I'd always been a swimmer. But the same day I told my parents I was going to quit the pool was the day my coach got the letter telling me I was in the Scotland team. There and then he gave me the ultimatum either give everything to swimming or do athletics.

'It might sound daft to give up something you are good at but I was bored with swimming BECAUSE I was good at it.

'I wanted to try something totally different to see what it was like.'

As it turned out, athletics was very much to his liking but coach Bill Walker had to put in a lot of work to improve his confidence and lap times.

Allan said: 'I hated school. I wasn't good at much else other than sport and tried to kid on I was sick to get out of going to classes.

'Of course, if I was too sick for school I wasn't allowed to train, either so most of the time I had to go and it was hard.

'Everyone is better at some things than others and it's a case of finding out what that is. For me it was sport and I wanted to concentrate on getting better at it but the school just didn't back me.

'A couple of times my mum and dad had to keep me off school to compete in some big swimming races because the teachers wouldn't give me permission to go with their blessing.

'Then when I won something the school would be first to let the local newspaper know. They were happy to take the credit then.

'By the time I left school I had no confidence. I had nothing to show for all the years I'd been there and I was failing every exam I sat. But athletics changed my life.

'My coach worked on my confidence, giving me a lot of credit for everything I did right and that was a nice lift.'

Before long Stuart's belief was boosted further with selection for the Paralympic Games at Sydney in 2000. However, even at that stage his bright future in the sport was in doubt as he contemplated representing his country on a far more dangerous field.

He said: 'A couple of weeks before I was due to go to Australia I went down to the Army Careers office and filled in the forms. All I had left to do was sign at the bottom then I got the letter saying I was picked for Sydney.

'Had I signed on the dotted line I would have spent the Paralympics square bashing for three weeks at some army training camp.

' never ripped up the form because I was still considering joining up after the Games.

Even now, if athletics does not work out I might still enlist.'

The army's loss has been athletics' gain. At the Paralympics Allan defied injury to surge to a silver medal in the 400m but admits it still stings thathe didn't win gold. He said: 'We were training every day on tracks that were harder than I was used to.

'By the time the final came along I had stress fractures and shin splints in both legs and could hardly stand on my right foot.

'Basically I had wee bits of the bone chipping away. A scan showed some of the injuries were a year old. I had been training and competing through it for all this time without knowing and it picked the worst time to come to a head.

'In the race I fell so far behind the leader that the commentator stopped mentioning my name. I was about 50 metres back going into the final straight and thought to myself how much I hate losing races.

'I forgot about the pain for a moment, gave everything I had left and almost caught the guy on the line. But at the end it was so painful that I had to be stretchered up to the podium to get my silver.

'I never look at that medal because it's a disappointment for me. I know I could have won the gold.'

Stuart's biggest achievement to date was his storming gold-medal run at the AAAs under-23 event last year that booked his place in the Europeans in Poland.

While that adventure ended without a medal he had made history with his successful crossover to able-bodied athletics. Now he rubs shoulders with Scotland's top track stars Commonwealth and European medallist Lee McConnell is among the members of his training group.

He has famous links in his private life, too. His girlfriend Vicky's father is former Rangers footballer Colin Jackson.

Allan smiled: 'It doesn't help that I'm a Celtic fan. I know you're supposed to suck up to your girlfriend's dad but he doesn't take too kindly to me walking into his house wearing a Hoops top.

'We always have side bets before every Old Firm match but I'm feeling bad about taking his money all the time.'

After coming forward in leaps and bounds last year, Stuart's start to 2004 has been dogged by injury and illness that may have killed his Olympic dream before it started.

He said: 'My ambition was to make the 4x400m relay team for Athens but I've had so many setbacks in the winter that I might have to think again.

'I put my back muscle out then I got flu followed by mumps. It has set my progress back three months in the past four months I only managed to make training four times.

'Hopefully my run of bad luck is past now and I can start working towards building on what I achieved last season.'

If he does, that will be special. In every sense of the word.

BORN: 14th August 1981, Glasgow

EVENT: 400m

CLUB: Shettleston Harriers

COACH: Bill Walker/Alex Naylor

HONOURS: Paralympic Games: 400m silver (2000) Cyprus Junior International: 400m gold and new world record (2000) West of Scotland Championships 200m/400m gold (2000) World Disabled Championships: 400m 4th (1998)

CAPTION(S):

Fast track to fame: Allan Stuart has had a meteoric rise to international prominence