We would like to give a huge congratulations to all of the Get Kids Going! supported athletes for their amazing achievements in the Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham.
In a hugely exciting games, the athletes made us all proud with their determination and prowess after a particularly challenging few years. 400 sports men and women from England have competed at the Games over the last ten days. England are celebrated with a record haul of 176 medals coming second in the medals table.
Scotland finished with 51 medals, Northern Ireland achieved a record medal tally of 18 and Wales finished on 28 medals.
Get Kids Going! athletes got off to a flying start when Eden Rainbow-Cooper won her first Commonwealth Games medal. She picked up a silver medal in the women’s T53/54 marathon on 30th July 2022. She came in at just under the two hour mark, four minutes behind Australia’s Madison de Rozario who took the gold medal.
Eden, who lives in Havant is an Ambassador for Get Kids Going! and has been supported by us for a number of years. She lives with Sacral Agenises, a condition which limits muscle growth below the knee.
The medals continued for Get Kids Going! supported athletes as Fabienne Andre won a bronze medal in the women’s T33/34 100 metres on 2nd August 2022. She had an excellent finish time of 19:58 seconds and beating Paralympic bronze medallist Australian Robyn Lambird by 10 seconds to take third place.
Fabienne, who lives in Brighton, has been supported by Get Kids Going! for a number of years since she started her Paralympic journey.
She took up wheelchair racing after Para swimming which she started at the age of 14. She began training as a wheelchair racer in 2018 and started competing in July 2019.
It was a very special race as England picked up all three medals in the 100m. Hannah Cockcroft won her first ever Commonwealth Gold and Kare Adenegan came second.
We have been supporters of Get Kids Going! Ambassador Fabienne for a number of years and are always impressed by her enthusiasm and determination.
Finally, huge congratulations to Get Kids Going! Ambassador Aled Davies for his first Commonwealth Games Gold medal. Aled was supported by Get Kids Going! when he was younger which helped to kick start his amazing sporting career. Aled won a gold medal for shot in the Tokyo Paralympics last year. However in the Commonwealth Games he switched to discus when he knew there was an opportunity to add the missing gold from his collection.
Get Kids Going! Para Snowboarder James Barnes-Miller won the small final. He came fifth in the UL sno
Davies won the F42-44/61-64 men’s discus final with a throw of 51.39m.
He said: “It’s a special one. It really is. I’m very proud of being Welsh, it’s very close to my heart,”. He won a silver in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
“After Glasgow 2014 and the disappointment, I didn’t think I’d get another opportunity to do this. After just focusing on shot put solely for the last seven years, we saw this opportunity on the horizon. We knew it was going to be a short turnaround. I’ve only been doing it since September of last year, it’s been incredible.
“I picked up a little niggle in my pelvis so it was hit and miss whether I was going to be at 100 percent. I’m in a lot of pain, we’ll find out how serious it is after my scans but at the end of the day, no one is going to remember what I threw, they are going to remember the colour of the medal, and that’s a gold for Wales.”
He continued “I want to get ready for Paris world championships next year. Then Paris Paralympics is only two years away and I’d love to defend my title there. But for now, I want to relish this and take it all in.”
A huge congratulations to all of our athletes at the Commonwealth Games and visit our homepage to find out more about the Get Kids Going! athletes from the England team at the Commonwealth Games 2022.