Hannah Cockroft MBE

Hannah Cockroft MBE is one of the UK’s best known para-athletes.

With seven World titles and five Paralympic gold medals, Hannah is the reigning World and Paralympic Champion.

Hannah won three gold medals in the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games and the 2015 World Championship over 100, 400 and 800m.

Additionally, she won two gold medals in both the 100m & 200m in the 2011 and 2013 World Championships and two gold medals in the London 2012 Paralympics.

Hannah also holds the T34 World Records for 100, 200, 400 and 800m.

Within 48 hours of being born Hannah Cockroft suffered two cardiac arrests. This resulted in damage to two areas of her brain, which left her with deformity to both legs and feet and weakened hips.

Doctors predicted that Hannah would rely on a wheelchair for the rest of her life and that she would not live beyond her teenage years.

Hannah started out wanting to be a ballerina, a police constable, an actor, a singer, and finally settled on anything ‘to be famous’!

It was in senior school that Hannah discovered a love of sports, where an enthusiastic sports teacher introduced her to a local wheelchair basketball coach and, at 13 years old, she started playing for a wheelchair basketball team.

Hannah got involved with the disabled sports team at school and there began her journey into athletics.

At the age of 15, Hannah represented Yorkshire in both wheelchair basketball and seated discus.

After winning a silver medal at the UK School Games for seated discus, she was invited to a UK Athletics Talent ID Day at Loughborough University and the rest, as they say, is history.

An accomplished motivational speaker with an inspiring story to tell, Hannah Cockroft regularly appears on TV and in the media.

Hannah is patron of five charities, she works closely with various disability groups and actively campaigns on disability issues.