UK Sport

The Decision-Makers: Tanni Grey-Thompson OBE

Matthew Crawcour 02 March 2001

FOR MOST of us visiting Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney would be an achievement in itself.

For Tanni Grey-Thompson it wasn’t enough – during her trips she managed to accumulate a total of 13 Paralympic medals and 11 World Championship medals - breaking over 20 World Records in the process - whilst competing in four Paralympic Games.

A Loughborough University graduate with a degree in Politics and Social Administration, Tanni has never been one to rest on her laurels and has a long history of making her unique experience available in key sports bodies in the UK. She has previously been a Panel Member of the English Lottery Sports Fund and served on the Sports Council for Wales, moving on to become a Member of UK Sport’s Council in November 1998.

Tanni now juggles her time between training – her days as an athlete are still far from over as she targets further success at Manchester’s Commonwealth Games next year - and sitting on both UK Sport’s Council and Awards Panel. It is the latter forum where Tanni has a big role to play as the Panel influences the destiny of the £25m of Lottery funds that UK Sport channels in Olympic and Paralympic sport annually.

IT IS a role and a responsibility that Tanni does not underestimate, "Lottery funding has made a huge contribution to the success of the British Olympic and Paralympic teams. Using my experience as an athlete to play a part in supporting British success at major Games is both satisfying and an honour."

The workload won’t diminish either as UK Sport makes decisions of the amount of cash that sports will have up until the next Olympic and Paralympic Games in Athens, where the public will no doubt expect at least a repeat of the success in Sydney – and of course there’s the London Marathon in April and both European and World Championships this year.

So the next time someone blames 'faceless bureaucrats’ for making decisions, think again…one of them might just challenge you to a race!

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