A Life Less Ordinary with Sophie Elwes - #2 Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson: Using creativity to overcome challenges, dealing with discrimination, and winning the London Marathon six times

#2 Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson: Using creativity to overcome challenges, dealing with discrimination, and winning the London Marathon six times

05/25/20 • 51 min

Sophie has a conversation with cross-bench peer and eight time gold winning Paralympic medallist, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson DBE DL. Tanni sits in the House of Lords where she advocates for disability rights, welfare and disability sport. She first went to the Paralympic Games in 1988 and to four more Games after that, winning 11 Paralympic medals, eight gold medals, breaking three world records in wheelchair racing and, on top of that, won the London Marathon six times. Tanni talks about growing up in the 1970s in Wales with Spina Bifida, how her parents refused to allow her to be discriminated against, her experiences competing at five Paralympic Games. They discuss transport for disabled people in the UK, the discrimination they’ve both faced and how things have changed as a person with a disability over the course of Tanni’s life. We discuss impact of Coronavirus for people with a disability, how lack of access combined with wheelchair skills can be empowering and Tanni shares her words of wisdom about how she’s reached her level of success.

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Hosted by Sophie Elwes, who knows a thing or two about overcoming difficulties, after sustaining a spinal cord injury in 2011. Each episode Sophie will interview an extraordinary guest who has faced and overcome enormous challenges and adversity and is achieving incredible things in spite of what they've had to deal with. She'll be finding out their story, about their greatest struggles and triumphs, and asking them what advice they would share with other people dealing with challenges of their own.

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#4 George Robinson - Authentic representation in the media, learning about yourself and lockdown activities

Sophie speaks to Netflix’s Sex Education star George Robinson about his rugby accident in 2015 when he broke his neck and finds out about his journey to appearing in one of Netflix’s biggest hits of 2020. They chat about Tiger King, self-image, representation of disability in the media and the audition process. George gives his words of wisdom about how important it is to learn about yourself and how he’s managed to rise to such heights despite experiencing such trauma.