Ellie Challis

Started: She began swimming at age eight at Colchester Phoenix Amateur Swimming Club in England. (walesonline.co.uk, 11 Mar 2022; telegraph.co.uk, 22 Jan 2020) Reason: She was inspired to swim after watching a dolphin named Winter, whose tail was amputated after getting caught in a crab trap. "She swims differently to all the other dolphins." (Olympic YouTube channel, 16 Jan 2019; BBC Earth Unplugged YouTube channel, 22 Sep 2018) Ambition: To win a medal at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. (paralympic.org, 31 Jan 2024) Awards: She was the female recipient of the Bill McGowran Trophy, awarded for excellence in Para sport, at the 2023 Sports Journalists' Association [SJA] British Sports Awards. (Instagram profile, 17 Mar 2024) She was named Young Sports Personality of the Year at the 2021 Essex Activity Awards in England. (activeessex.org, 02 Dec 2021) She won the Para swimming Talent Athlete of the Year award for 2019 at the Swim England National Awards. (swimming.org, 02 Dec 2019) In 2019 she received the One-to-Watch award from SportsAid. (swimming.org, 20 Nov 2019) She received the Young Hero award and overall Amplifon Award at the 2019 Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons. (Amplifon UK & EIRE Facebook page, 28 Apr 2020) In 2018 she won the Inspirational Youth Award at the Pride of Essex Awards in England. (gazette-news.co.uk, 28 Feb 2019) Additional Info: FROM IDOL TO TEAMMATE She said that competing alongside her idol Ellie Simmonds at the 2019 World Championships in London, England, ranks among the best moments of her career. "I looked up to Ellie Simmonds. To be selected for worlds and to be on a team with this amazing person that I watched on the TV at London 2012 and Rio 2016 was incredible. Things like when I put pictures on Instagram and she messages me congratulating me and talking to me at camps are unbelievable. She's just a normal person, but I look up to her so much. For her, as the person who inspired me to get into the sport, to be one of the people who I see regularly is quite crazy to me." (gazette-news.co.uk, 12 Mar 2020) PANDEMIC POSITIVES She says the break from competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic helped her to progress as a swimmer. "When Covid hit and everything got delayed, actually it was good for me. For me, at my age, it gave me an extra year to train. I ended up moving to Manchester [to the National Performance Centre] and being able to train here, which had been the plan for after Tokyo but it happened before because the Paralympic Games were delayed. I improved so much in that year because I was with such good coaches in Manchester, that I think without it, I don't know what would have happened." (walesonline.co.uk, 11 Mar 2022)