Lee Pearson is ready and raring to make another assault on gold medal glory this summer - just nine months after breaking his back.
Dressage rider Pearson will become the most decorated British competitor in Paralympic history if he repeats his feat of the last three Games and wins triple gold in London.
That would give him a staggering 12 Paralympic titles, one more than Dame Tanni Grey Thompson and Welsh swimmer David Roberts, but 38-year-old Pearson is just happy to be in selection contention for Great Britain's five-strong equestrian team.
The injury, suffered after he fell off his horse during a training session, meant Pearson could not defend his European titles in Belgium last September, but it could easily have been so much worse.
"I went to accident and emergency that day, had the X-rays, and they said nothing was broken and sent me home with painkillers," he said.
"The third day back riding, though, I managed 10 minutes and I was nearly crying in pain.
"An MRI scan was arranged, and then I was told three vertebrae were cracked and one was crushed. I had been walking, talking and trying to ride for two weeks before that.
"I am as fit now as I was a week before the accident. I was back riding by the time of the Europeans, but I had missed the selection trials.
"I don't think about the accident at all - I have no flashbacks. It was just one of those things."
Apart from his golden exploits in Sydney, Athens and Beijing, Staffordshire-born Pearson has also won several world titles and European crowns, and he remains the central figure of a British equestrian squad packed with talent.
"I am proud of my 100 per cent success," he added, reflecting on his Paralympic career.
"Tanni has been an amazing ambassador, and her record is outstanding. What she has done for Paralympic athletes and disabled people around the world is inspirational.
"My angle on going into the arena is always the same, in that everyone else is better than me so I have to try even harder. I don't go into the arena thinking, 'I am Lee Pearson, I have won nine gold medals, I am unbeatable'.
"That approach makes me focused to try even harder.
"I am going to do my best. If that means I don't medal, so be it, if that means I come out with two individual gold medals and a team gold, then so be it.
"No-one can take away my nine gold medals so far, but if I put myself under pressure and think I have got to win three gold medals to keep everyone else happy, then I probably won't make it to London, I will probably be a nervous wreck."
