- Rower Georgie Brayshaw is defying the odds after being paralysed aged 15
- Doctors warned she would never walk again after horse riding accident
- But incredibly she will compete in the women’s quadruple sculls at Olympics
Rower Georgie Brayshaw is defying the odds just by being at the Olympics – having been paralysed in a riding accident aged 15.
She was in a coma for nine days and doctors warned her parents she would never be able to walk or feed herself again.
Incredibly she is now one of Team GB‘s medal hopes at the Paris Olympics. Next week, Ms Brayshaw, 30, will compete in the women’s quadruple sculls.
Team GB athletes have started arriving in Paris ahead of the Games’ opening on Friday. Among the stars are diver Tom Daley – competing at his fifth Olympics.
It is the first one for Leeds-born Ms Brayshaw but she says just getting to Paris proves that if children believe in themselves they can achieve anything.
Rower Georgie Brayshaw is defying the odds just by being at the Olympics – having been paralysed in a riding accident aged 15
Incredibly she is now one of Team GB ‘s medal hopes at the Paris Olympics competing in the women’s quadruple sculls
It is the first Olympics for Leeds-born Ms Brayshaw but she says just getting to Paris proves that if children believe in themselves they can achieve anything.
Great Britain’s Women’s quadruple sculls Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw during a training session at the Redgrave Pinsent Rowing Lake, Reading
The Olympic hopeful said: ‘It’s quite unbelievable really. I’m just Georgie from Leeds. I have to pinch myself.’
Describing her near-death experience as a teenager, she was galloping across a field with some friends when they reach a road and ‘my horse, just being an idiot, wasn’t slowing down. He slid over on the road and I slid off.’
She recalled: ‘I was in a coma for nine days and when I woke up I was paralysed on my left side.’
A hospital doctor told her parents: ‘She’s going to be here for a year, she’s never going to walk again and will probably never feed herself again.’
Ms Brayshaw was fed through a tube for a while, but defied the pessimism of the prognosis.
Consumed by an innate drive to get back on her feet, she was walking again within weeks.
She finished her studies at school in Harrogate, north Yorkshire, then went to university in Northampton, where she joined a rowing club. She has only been in Team GB’s rowing squad since 2022.
She told the Sunday Times: ‘It’s quite unbelievable really. I’m just Georgie from Leeds. I have to pinch myself.’
Daley, 30, made his Olympic debut aged 14 at Beijing 2008 and won bronze medals at London 2012 and Rio 2016, before finally landing gold at Tokyo 2020.
Going for gold: Georgie has only been in Team GB’s rowing squad since 2022
Girl power: Team GB has 327 athletes travelling to France, more than half of whom are women
Oar-some: The squad put in their final moments of training ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris
He had decided to retire after that triumph but returned to the sport so he could dive in front of his two children at Paris 2024.
Team GB has 327 athletes travelling to France, more than half of whom are women.
Across all the competing nations, it is the first Olympics in which there are exactly the same number of men as women.