East Cambridgeshire (Ely) Sporting Lunch

Chris is Britain’s most successful Paralympic swimmer winning a total of 9 golds, 5 silvers and 1 bronze. He was also Director of Paralympic Integration, responsible for the organisation of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.

As a boy Chris was a promising sportsman; on school teams for most sports and academically gifted with a distinct ambition to get to Cambridge University, by no means a normal next step from the Kidderminster Comprehensive he attended. At the age of 14 and completely unexpectedly Chris went blind overnight. His extraordinary courage and determination took him back into the pool, and just four years later to straight A’s for his A-levels and a place at Cambridge. At the end of his first year at Cambridge he won a record-breaking six gold medals at the Barcelona Paralympics.