To friends and classmates, Kyle Brotherton has always been known as "Kyle, the sports guy".

Born with lumbosacral agenesis, a condition which means he has no sacrum, tail bone or lumbar, Kyle sat in his first wheelchair at age three - where he found an affinity for speed.

Thirteen years later, his current chair customised with bright orange spokes, the Port Glasgow athlete has countless medals and trophies in both swimming and wheelchair racing, and has a growing fan base which includes Paralympian Kurt Fearnley, X Factor star Nicholas McDonald and Rio gold medalist Tom Daley.

In May this year he was internationally classified, having raced athletes from around the globe in the Swiss Open Nationals, coming third in the 200-metre and fourth in the 100-metre, 400-metre and 800-metre.

Now, as the 2016 Paralympic Games commences in Rio, Kyle hopes to join the next generation of professional athletes - with his sights set on Tokyo 2020.

Independent movement has been engrained into Kyle's upbringing, whether it was crawling on his hands as a child or making soup in his home economics class.

He also left classmates impressed last year when he brought his T54 racing chair along to a school-organised sponsored walk to raise funds for SCIAF, and pelted along the four-mile route between Port Glasgow and Kilmacolm.

"I don't think people in my primary school understood my condition," said Kyle. "They didn't see me as being in a wheelchair.

"I was just another pupil and they didn't really ask about it. Now they just see me as Kyle the sport guy."

He first found joy in competing at age seven, while attending an inclusive sports club at the Greenock Sports Centre.

Kyle tried his hand at every activity he could from badminton, tennis, rugby and basketball to his personal favourites, wheelchair racing and swimming, encouraged to enter competitions through the Paralympic Pathway.

Although it took some time before he gained confidence in the water.

"I was first in a swimming pool around the age of three but I couldn't swim until I was in primary six. I had to wear arm bands - floaties," Kyle laughs.

"I got swimming lessons in the Greenock Waterfront and from there it got more intense and advanced. The training is really hard but it feels good.

"But I just liked sport, I liked being able to go out and do it myself - and get rid of my energy."

Kyle's athletic prowess led him to leave Olympic diver Tom Daley in awe, after he triumphed in the Mini London Wheelchair Marathon in 2014.

Now he trains in swimming and racing at least four times a week, balancing competitions with school work as he enters his final year at secondary school.

His already impressive upper body strength is challenged week by week, and he has recently started training for his first 10k.

But Kyle is concerned that other young wheelchair users may not get to enjoy sport the way he has, as charities criticise sporting venues from "shutting out" disabled fans.

A UK-wide survey of young disabled people found that half of respondents reported being forced to sit away from their friends and families at matches - something Kyle himself has experienced.

He was unable to sit with both his parents at the London 2012 Paralympics, and again at the 2014 IPC Athletics Grand Prix in Birmingham.

He said: "When you're getting moved from your family to be put in a wee disabled bit, and they're in the stands, it's a big problem. It's just boring.

"You can't take more than one family member - so if it was me it would be my mum or dad, and the other would need to go in the stands somewhere.

"It happened to us during a lap of honour I was doing with the athletes in Birmingham. When we got there we watched all the para athletes going round doing their events. My dad had a seat beside me and my mum had a seat across the arena."

With the new academic term under way, Kyle is immersed in studying maths, English, design and manufacture and is taking an engineering course at college.

But unlike many of his peers, Kyle has already firmly decided where he will be in the next five years.

"I hopefully see myself entering the Paralympics," he added. "Tokyo 2020 is the goal."