It will mark the start of a hectic time in China for Shelly, who will compete in the 800, 1500 and 5000 metres as well as the Marathon, regarded as her specialist event.

The 22-year-old is now rated as the country's best female wheelchair athlete.

Shelly burst on to the scene with a vengeance in 2005 when she finished second in her first ever London Marathon, beating famous fellow racer Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson into third place.

In 2007 she won the London Marathon for the first time and this year broke the British record for her class of marathon with a time of 1:37.44.

Shelly injured her spine falling 20 feet from a tree when she was aged 11.

n Chef de Mission Phil Lane has steered clear of setting specific GB targets for the Paralympics but expects a "very successful Games''.

Medals

Britain finished second in the medal table in the last two Games and accumulated 94 medals in Athens in 2004, 35 of them gold.

China topped the standings with 63 golds and 141 medals four years ago and are expected to be the leading nation again.

But Britain are ideally placed to maintain their status as the next best when the Games begin on Sunday.

Lottery funding has made it possible for most of the GB athletes to become professional and a haul of 100 medals is likely to be at the back of Lane's mind.

"We will certainly be among the top contenders,'' said Lane, who was Chef de Mission in Greece, and in the Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Turin in 2006.

"We haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of catching China – even if we quadrupled our budget for the next 15 years we'd be struggling. We simply don't have the numbers to compete in that context.

"But for a nation of our size, to stay up there in the top five in the world or scrape into the top three would be a success.''