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Strong Women
10 incredible female GB Paralympians to keep an eye out for in Paris
By Lauren Geall
6 months ago
4 min read
Get ready to cheer on Paralympics GB at the Paris 2024 Paralympics with this guide to some of the most exciting female para-athletes competing for Great Britain.
The Paris 2024 Olympics may be done and dusted, but the Games themselves are far from over. In two and a half weeks, the international sporting community will descend once again on the French capital for the Paralympic Games – or, as Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet called them during his speech at the Closing Ceremony last night, “the best return leg of your lives”.
The Games, which will run from 28th August to 8th September, will see 4,500 para-athletes compete across 22 disciplines ranging from para-triathlon to wheelchair fencing and blind football. Paralympics GB will be competing in 19 of those 22 sports, with over 200 athletes participating.
We can think of few better ways to shake off that post-Olympics lull by getting excited about all the incredible female para-athletes who’ll be taking to our screens in just a few weeks’ time. So, to help you do just that, we’ve put together this guide to some of the key names you can expect to see making waves when the competition kicks off on 28th August.
Lauren Steadman
Sport: Para-triathlon
Lauren Steadman MBE is a triple world-champion para-triathlete and seven-time European title holder. She started her sporting career as a swimmer before switching to para-triathlon, the sport in which she claimed gold in the PTS5 class in Tokyo.
Karé Adenegan
Sport: Para-athletics
Inspired by Hannah Cockroft’s performance at London 2012, Karé Adenegan started wheelchair racing soon after the games and was on the same team as Cockroft by the time the 2015 World Championships in Doha came around. In Tokyo, she won double silver in both the T34 100m and 800m (a classification for wheelchair athletes with cerebral palsy).
Ellie Challis
When she won silver in the S3 50m backstroke in Tokyo (the classification for athletes with severe limb disabilities), Ellie Challis became Paralympics GB’s youngest medallist at the Games. Going into Paris, Challis holds the world record in the SB2 50m breaststroke (the breaststroke-specific classification for athletes with severe limb disabilities) and is the owner of multiple international medals.
Sarah Storey
Sport: Para-cycling
Dame Sarah Storey is one of the most decorated athletes in British sporting history, and she’ll be aiming to add more medals to her tally when she competes at her ninth Games in Paris. As it stands, she has 17 Paralympic gold medals to her name; she won three golds in Tokyo alone.
Emma Wiggs
Sport: Para-canoeing
Emma Wiggs is one of the most decorated athletes in para-canoeing history, with Paris 2024 marking her third Paralympic Games with Team GB. She won gold in the KL2 (kayak) class in Rio before claiming another gold in Tokyo, this time in the VL2 (va’a) class.
Funmi Oduwaiye
Sport: Para-athletics
Funmi Oduwaiye took up para-athletics in 2022 after a routine operation went wrong, making it impossible for her to pursue her dream career in basketball. Just one year later, at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in Paris, Oduwaiye finished in fourth place in F44 shot put and sixth in F44 discus (a classification for field athletes who have moderately affected movement in one or both lower limbs).
Hannah Cockroft
Sport: Para-athletics
One of Britain’s best-known para-athletes, Hannah Cockroft has seven Paralympic and 16 World Championship gold medals as well as a slew of world records to her name. She got into wheelchair racing as a teenager, and competes in the same T34 class as Adenegan.
Kadeena Cox
Sport: Para-cycling
Kadeena Cox competed in athletics from an early age, but switched to para-athletics in 2015 after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She later won T37 100m gold (a classification for athletes with co-ordination impairment) at the IPC Athletics World Championships, before switching to track cycling later on in her career. Since then, she’s also claimed Paralympic gold in the C4-5 time trial (a classification for athletes with co-ordination impairment on one side or on both legs).
Rachel Choong
Sport: Para-badminton
Rachel Choong is one of Great Britain’s most successful badminton players, with 10 World and 10 European titles to her name across the SH6 women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles events (a classification for athletes with a short stature). Paris 2024 will mark the first Paralympics where her classification has been included in the competition.
Olivia Breen
Sport: Para-athletics
Olivia (also known as Livvy) Breen is a two-time World Para-athletics champion and two-time Paralympic bronze medalist. She competes across both the 100m sprint and long jump in the T38 category (a class for ambulant athletes with cerebral palsy).
Images: Adobe/Getty
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