TWO north Yorkshire athletes will be hoping to add to Great Britain's Sydney medal haul when they compete in the 2000 Paralympic Games later this month.

Paul Smith, from York, and Jenny Ridley, from Harrogate, are among the 214-strong British team which is aiming to finish in the top three in the medal table.

A total of 4,000 athletes from 132 countries are expected to take part in the Sydney Games from October 18-29, which have already received massive interest from the sport-mad Australian public.

Smith, 23, will compete in the discus while Ridley, one of the squad's youngest members at the age of 16, will be turning out for the Great Britain women's wheelchair basketball team.

Bradford Bears player Ridley, tipped as one of the stars of the future, was part of the squad which won bronze at last year's European Champ-ionships in Holland.

Also selected is visually impaired sprinter Andrew Curtis, from Bridlington, who has won medals at the 1999 and '96 Games, as well as several from World and European Champion-ships.

Smith, who has cerebral palsy, headed off to Sydney this week for the biggest challenge of his athletics career to date.

He first took up athletics when he moved to a residential school for the disabled in Mansfield at the age of 17.

During his three years there he was spotted by the British coaches and has gone on to represent his country on several occasions.

Although winning a medal in Sydney will be a tough task, Smith would be satisfied with improving his personal best and pushing the world's leading discus throwers all the way.

Smith, of Yarborough Way, Badger Hill, has already experienced success in other fields - he is a Duke of Edinburgh gold award winner and earlier this year completed an information technology foundation course at York College.

Ridley will find herself playing to a full stadium if Great Britain get to the women's wheelchair basketball final.

This final, on October 27, is one of three events which have already sold out - the men's basketball final and one night of swimming being the other two.

A total of more than 610,000 tickets for the Games have already been sold, leading organisers to believe they will reach their total ticket budget target of 650,000.

A capacity crowd of 87,000 is expected to watch the opening ceremony, for which just 2,000 tickets are still available.