CIRENCESTER League table tennis player Billy Shilton will be hoping to finish the international season on a high next week when he will be one of ten young GB athletes competing in the Cote d’Azure 2014 International Para table tennis tournament in Hyères les Palmiers, France (October 23-26).

“I’ve been training hard and playing a lot of national able-bodied tournaments in England and Wales because match practice is very important," said Shilton.

"I try to play as much as I can to prepare for international tournaments. I’ve been working a lot on my strength – I get unbalanced quite a lot because of my disability so I’ve been trying to improve on that and also playing the right shots at the right time.”

The 16-year-old from Stonehouse, who won team gold in the Slovenia Open in May and his first individual medal at the Spanish Open in June, has been training with the GB Performance Squad on a regular basis and has taken further inspiration from the team’s recent success at the World Championships in China from which his class 7 team-mate Will Bayley returned as world champion.

“Will got gold in China which is what I want to do in the future,” “so that inspires me to do well and I’m really excited about France - I can’t wait.” said Shilton.

Billy has a Class 7 disability having been diagnosed at the age of five with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), a group of inherited conditions that damage nerves outside the brain and spine.