Ellie Challis

British Paralympian Ellie Challis is still in her teens, but she has already broken world and European swimming records and, as the youngest member ParalympicsGB, won an Paralympic silver medal. In June 2022, aged 18, she became the world para swimming champion, triumphing in the final of the 50-metre SB2 breaststroke at the tournament in Madeira.

Challis was born in Clacton-on-Sea in March 2004. Tragedy struck when she was 16 months old: she contracted meningitis and one point was technically dead for two minutes. She survived, but the virus resulted in the amputation of her arms and legs below the elbow and knee respectively. As she grew up, she became inspired the story of a dolphin that lost its fin but learned to swim again using a prosthetic one. Challis determined to become a swimmer, and she burst on to the para swimming scene in 2017 with a 50-metre breaststroke performance that broke the 15-year-old British record. Two years later, at the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships in Glasgow, she won her first medal, taking bronze in the S3 50-metre backstroke.

The pandemic drew everything to an unwelcome halt during 2020, but in 2021, Challis was named the youngest member of the ParalympicsGB that travelled to Tokyo for the Paralympic Games. She seized the opportunity by taking silver in the 50-metre backstroke. In 2022, she continued her rise to the top of her field by winning a world championship title setting two new world records (in backstroke and breaststroke) at the Winter Nationals in Glasgow. She will be working to stay in the same kind of form for Paris 2024.