WEST FIFE Paralympic champion Owen Miller's bid for World Championship glory will see him go head-to-head with two athletes within the same the same training group.

The 31-year-old, who won 1500 meters gold in the T20 classification at the delayed Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, is one of seven Scots that are competing at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships, which began on Saturday in Paris.

Two more - Ben Sandilands and Steven Bryce - will not only race against him in the T20 1500m, but train with him on a regular basis as part of a training group led by Owen's coach, Steve Doig.

Fife AC team-mates Ben and Owen have been working with Steve for 10 and six years respectively, whilst Steven, who is based in North Lanarkshire, and is a member of the Victoria Park City of Glasgow club, joined the group in the spring of 2022.

The trio are joined by a further 12 athletes - Daniel Milone (Australia); Michael Barber (Canada); Mohamed Hersi (Denmark); Gael Geffroy (France); Aaron Noel Shorten (Ireland); Ndiaga Dieng (Italy); Daiki Akai (Japan); Yuki Iwata (Japan); Yuji Togawa (Japan); Sandro Baessa (Portugal); Pavlo Voluikevych (Ukraine); and Michael Brannigan (United States) - on the start line in their bid for medals.

Steven and Ben joined Owen, who featured in last week's Press Sport, at Pitreavie, where Steve's group train, before heading to Paris.

Ben, who has ran a PB this year, placed first in the T20 1500m at the Dubai 2023 World Para Athletics Grand Prix in March, in which Owen placed second, and he is competing at his first World Para Athletics Championships.

"I'm confident," he said.

"There's nerves there, obviously. It's really good and it will be good to be part of it.

"I have targets but, if I don't get them, it's not the end of the world. If I do get them, it's good."

Steven is also competing at his first World Para Athletics Championships, and, last month, competed at the Virtus Global Games, in Vichy, France, in the 800m and 1500, events.

It is a multi-sport competition for athletes with an intellectual impairment, and saw several competitors who are in the field at the World Championships take part.

Steve, speaking to scottishathletics, noted: "We’ve been lucky to get three athletes in the same event, so that’s great progress for the group.

"Obviously Owen’s been in that classification for a while now, Ben got into the T20 classification, he went through the classification process in Dubai in early March.

"Steven’s been on the British Athletics Futures Programme and we’d actually hoped we could squeeze him into the World Championship team. We weren’t quite sure we’d done enough this year, but luckily I think we just got in at the last minute."

Owen, Ben and Steven are scheduled to race in the T20 1500m on Monday at 9.30am, the final day of competition.