The Impossible Dream | Billy Monger on Racing, Recovery and the road to the Paralympics

Mark Chapman (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Billy Monger (0:05)

My name is Billy Monger. I'm 40

Hi. My name.

Gabby Logan (0:17)

Billy Monger was just 17 years old when an horrific racing accident changed his life forever.

Mark Chapman (0:27)

Less than a year later, he was back competing since then, he's won races, he's broken an Ironman World Record and set his sights on the Paralympics.

Gabby Logan (0:35)

Today, Billy joins us to talk about that journey, his extraordinary ambitions and why he's now helping other young amputees rediscover themselves through sport.

Billy, thank you so much for coming into The Sports Agents. I absolutely love your films, What Moves Us, and we're going to get on to that project and the brilliant people that you've brought in. And essentially, it's a way of showing other amputees how sport can move you on in your life and the power of sport and community. I want you to go back almost 10 years now that you had your accident, which you've talked about a lot. And we know how that had so many different emotional outpourings in your family, didn't it? Your dad obviously had got you into motorsport. How quickly were you able to find a way back and realize that sport was a way of moving your life forwards?

Billy Monger (1:40)

Yeah, I think sport for me was something that I'd done since such a young age, really. I started go karting through my dad when I was six and obviously continued that for 11, nearly 12 years before I had my accident back in 2017 And sport was really just a pillar for my recovery and something to guide me and to aim for. And it was my life. So the idea of having my accident, losing both my legs and then sort of writing off sport for my life was probably more daunting than the idea of giving it a go, not knowing if I'd fail, returning to sport again after my accident. So that was kind of my mindset around the things at that time.

Mark Chapman (2:17)

Have you found with your experiences that that is a in inverted commas normal mindset or do more people who have been in your situation have had an amputation, do they find it go back to the other point about it being daunting trying to return to sport? So I would imagine there is an intimidating side to it as well.

Billy Monger (2:42)

Yeah, I think everyone's stories are different and obviously we kind of touch on that in the films. Obviously people we've met, I've met people with this project that have been disabled since birth, I've met people that have picked up their disabilities later on in life. And I think for me, having sort of lived 18 years of my life without a disability and most of that and being revolved around sport, sport just made sense for me and it was my sort of happy place and I was comfortable with that. It felt like I'd found my thing at such a young age, which not a lot of young people are lucky enough to do so. Everyone's lives work out in different ways.

Gabby Logan (3:15)

And I think the thing that comes through, you were in elite sport, you had this community around you, and the motor racing world really did kind of put their arms around you, didn't they, and wanted to support you. I think with these young people in your films, what we see is when you don't have that in your life, you know, at the very start, it's hard to imagine yourself getting back into it. And when you show them a way that sport can kind of put their arms around them and help them with their confidence, because confidence was a theme, I think, that ran through those people. And I think it's so hard, doesn't it, to say to somebody, you'll get confident, you'll be okay. But actually, the doubts, the worries, the insecurities that most people would have, you obviously didn't have those because of that whole kind of community that was there for you.

And I think that was the powerful thing that came through to me. We talk about it all the time on the podcast, the beauty of sport, what it can do, how it can change lives. So where did the idea come from then, that you could take these ordinary guys, if you like, ordinary girls and guys who don't have that background that you had and show them away?

Billy Monger (4:20)

I think the idea for the series in the first place, it's come from the fact that I've done lots of charity work in the past. I've done a couple of projects with Comet Relief, which had been really successful. And I've met some of the individuals and sort of the projects and charities where that money eventually goes to and the sort of people it helps. But it felt like it was really big scale stuff. And we're talking big numbers, Comet Relief, a massive charity. And I kind of felt like I wanted to do something more one-to-one basis where I could really share my experiences, meet individuals and actually spend more time with them so you could see that progression. You could see someone coming out of their shell, adapting to their new circumstances if their accident was recent. And so we put the message out on social media and had lots of interest and lots of replies. And actually the casting for a project like this is really difficult because there was so many amazing stories, so many people that were up for being involved in the project. But I think with the four people we came across, there were people that had different disabilities to me, people that had very similar stories in ways to me. It just felt like a really well-rounded bunch to kind of show that perspective on a bigger scale.