Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson
Paralympic Champion and Peer
Baroness Grey-Thompson of Eaglescliffe is a paralympian, lifetime peer and broadcaster who has broken 30 world records across an incredible 16 year Paralympic career.
Tanni is a wheelchair-racer like no other. She has won the London Wheelchair Marathon a staggering six times between 1992 and 2002 and competed at five Paralympic Games from 1988 – 2004, taking home 11 gold medals, four silver and one bronze. At the 1992 Barcelona Paralympics, she became the first woman to complete 400m in under 60 seconds. At World Championships she added a further five gold, four silver and three bronze medals to her haul.
Tanni has written two books: My Autobiography and Aim High, and does motivational speaking. She was voted BBC Wales’ Sports Personality of the year three times and named BBC Sports Personality of the Year and Sunday Times Sports Woman of the Year. Tanni has been recognised by numerous institutions and holds a staggering 28 honorary degrees. Since 2015 she has served as Chancellor of Northumbria University.
In 2005 Tanni was made a Dame for her services to sport, and in 2010 created a life peer, becoming Baroness Grey-Thompson of Eaglescliffe, in the County of Durham. As a working cross-bench peer she sits on numerous All Parliamentary Party (APPG) groups, and is especially active on issues of equality, disability rights, welfare reform and sports.
Tanni is Chair of ukactive and a board member at the BBC, the London Legacy Development Corporation, Sportsaid Foundation, and the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. She is married to fellow wheelchair athlete Dr Ian Thompson.
Tanni said: “Attitudes toward disabled people have come a long way but there’s still much to do. The Power List shows the huge variance of disabled people in a wide variety of roles and shows the different pathways you can take.”