Melanie Woods

Scottish Paralympian Melanie Woods is a wheelchair racer who has competed at the top level in T54 races since 2021. She finished fifth in the 800-metre race at the postponed Paralympic Games in Tokyo and more recently finished fourth in the 1500-metre race at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Born in Scotland in August 1994, Woods was a naturally athlete and working as a PE teacher in 2018 when an accident changed everything. She was riding her bike in Inverness when she was hit by a car that hadn’t seen her. Even before the ambulance had arrived, she knew that she had suffered life-changing injuries. She suffered multiple traumatic injuries and was ultimately paralysed from the waist down. She spent seven months in Queen Elizabeth University Hospital recovering. Whilst there, she saw the Paralympics on television and, thanks to her passionate, all-or-nothing personality, resolved to join a para sports team when she got out. She tried wheelchair tennis and sit-skiing but was ultimately drawn to wheelchair racing.

Woods joined the Red Star Athletics Club in Glasgow in 2019 and began training daily. She competed in her first tournament that year and, thanks to a charity, was soon able to buy a racing wheelchair of her own. In 2021, to her surprise, she was called up to the ParalympicsGB team that was travelling to compete at the European Championships in Poland. A third-place at the British Championships helped her to be picked to compete at the delayed 2020 Paralympics that summer. Her performance at the Commonwealth Games in 2022 was one of her best to date.