By Ade Adepitan Paralympian and TV presenter

The art of juggling two very different lifestyles, basketball and television, is similar in many ways to performing a side tilt in your chair to catch a rebound on a basketball court.

Both require concentration, organisation, good timing and most importantly balance.

But if you get any of these wrong, you usually end up falling flat on your face.

All your life you worry about being successful then all of a sudden - like the 147 bus to Ilford - three of them arrive at once

My international basketball career started in 1998 at the European Championships in Holland.

It was also my annus mirabilis because this was also the year that I got my first big break in television.

This arrived in the form of a children's show called 'Tiger Tiger' on Channel 5.

It's crazy, all your life you worry about being successful then all of a sudden - like the 147 bus to Ilford - three of them arrive at once.

The toughest thing for me to deal with in those early years was organisation.

The first test of my organisation skills came two months before the European Championships.

I'd been selected to play in a four-game Test series against Canada, who were probably the best team in the world at that time, and also had the world's future best player in Patrick Anderson.

This tournament coincided with the filming of Tiger Tiger's first programme, due to start 10 days earlier - in India.

The first dilemma I had to overcome was the national team coach, John Stanton.

I could have easily gone to India without telling him, but my main worry was the possibility of my flight being cancelled, delayed or even missing it altogether.

Ade was part of Britain's wheelchair basketball team at Sydney

If I didn't make the tournament on time, it would have signalled the end of my international career before it had even started.

I decided to tell John about India - it was a tough moment for me as I knew if he said no, I would be faced with an extremely difficult choice between TV and basketball.

Luckily, John said the trip was OK with him as long as I arrived on time to meet up with the team in Northampton.

I think even though it wasn't the perfect situation, John could probably relate to my problem because he himself taught at a secondary school and often had to deal with juggling two careers.

Wheelchair basketball had also only just entered into the era of lottery funding and the world of semi-professionalism. So in order to make ends meet a "real job" was definitely a necessity.

Looking back, telling John was a good idea as my plane was delayed and a staple diet of the most potent curry known to man three times a day meant I returned to Heathrow Airport shattered and in desperate need of a new set underpants - due to a severe case of 'Delhi belly'.

So I was very grateful that when I when I met up with the national team in Northampton, I didn't have to train with them and was rested for most of the first game.

This was the first of many potentially chaotic moments, but things got easier once I got an agent, who helped me create a timetable to survive in both the sporting and the television world.

The Sydney Paralympics played a big part in enabling the two worlds to co-exist - the BBC's coverage of the games and my subsequent media exposure meant everyone benefited in some way.

Ultimately being a very driven person has made this balancing act a lot easier to handle and any sacrifices I had to make were small price to pay when I consider the enjoyment and satisfaction that I gain from both these highly rewarding pursuits.