At PTSB, we never underestimate what it takes. Living our promise of Altogether More Human, we support the human behind the athlete, just as we support our customers every day.
As title sponsor of Team Ireland, our understanding of what the athletes go through runs deeper. We recognise that behind every athlete, there’s a human who started it all, who gets up every morning and faces every challenge head on, even when it feels like the odds are against them.
For Jordan, his sporting career did not begin with high jump. Inspired by his father, he was a successful basketball player, making history as the first one-handed player to represent his country globally.
He faced judgement from an early age, a memory that still fuels his determination. The early adversity he faced led to a disciplined routine, waking up at 6am to train, driven by the desire to prove sceptics wrong.
Jordan, who was born with a foreshortened left arm, was a sporting ground-breaker even before he turned to Para athletics because, in his teens, he was the first one-handed player to ever represent their country nationally in the world, when he played for Ireland at age 15.
A chance meeting with Jason Smyth at a disability conference persuaded him to try other sports at a Paralympic Ireland Expo, where he then started practicing high jump at his local track.
Jordan first competed in an Irish athletics’ vest in 2017 after just four months of training for high jump and, within a year, he had won a bronze medal at the 2018 European Championships. He finished sixth at the 2019 World Championships and fourth at this year’s European Championships in Poland in June. He is also one of very few Para Athletes to have won a National Championship in Able Bodied Competition.
Jordan was the flag-bearer leading Team Ireland out into the Olympic Stadium alongside fellow PTSB Ambassador Britney Arendse, where he finished nineth overall.