WELLBEING

Paralympian Stef Reid discusses body confidence and why girls shouldn’t give up on their favourite sports

INTERVIEW: KATE LOCKETT. PHOTO: TOM SHAW

Being a world champion and winning silver medals in the T44 long jump at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Paralympics are among Stef Reid’s host of sporting accolades. The 36-year-old says athletics reinforced her drive to succeed after a lifechanging accident at 15. “It gave me back my fire and fierceness. I learnt the value of hard work, how to deal with failure, and how to be resilient,” she says.

Research commissioned by Always shows that one in three girls drop out of sport during puberty, so the track and field parathlete – who is UK Athletics’ vice president – has partnered with Always to raise awareness for Sported, a youth charity that is encouraging girls to participate in sports. Before heading to Tokyo for the 2020 Paralympics, Stef sat down with hello! to talk training, self-compassion and her kitbag must-haves…

Stef, how did you get into sport?

“It was instilled by my parents – my dad loves football and my mum was always really sporty. The moment I went to school, I was always doing after-school activities. I played every single sport you could imagine but I was introduced to rugby for the first time at 12. That was my sport and that was the first time I was like: ‘Right, I want to be an international rugby superstar.’