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Sally started athletics life as a pentathlete and long jumper with the Essex Ladies’ Club. Her explosive power made her a decent junior sprinter and she soon began to concentrate on the 100m hurdles. Gold at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games of 1986 seemed to confirm Gunnell’s prowess at sprint hurdling, but by 1987 she was being encouraged to look at longer distances. In 1989, she took Gold at the European Cup 400m flat race in Gateshead; her speed endurance and mental toughness were becoming apparent. By 1990, she was hurdling again – with great success. She won the 1990 Commonwealth Games 400m hurdles title in Auckland; Gunnell had found her perfect event and grew rapidly in stature.
Tokyo’s 1991 World Championships could so easily have brought her the Gold medal; in the lead at the penultimate hurdle, she glanced across at one of her rivals. That uncharacteristic split second of mental diversion left her with the Silver and a burning sense of disappointment. Gunnell returned to the track’s biggest stage in 1992; the Barcelona Olympics. Months of hard graft paid off and she progressed to the 400m hurdles final without incident. An indifferent start to the biggest race of her life was soon forgotten as she engaged the Gunnell afterburner to blow away her rivals in the last 150 metres. Olympic Gold and a place in history were hers.
But Gunnell was not finished yet. She worked even harder during the off-season of 1992/3, building in a raft of changes to her nutrition, physical, and technical training; nothing was left to chance. Her coach knew exactly how to get her “peaked” in time for the World Championships in Stuttgart and all was going perfectly to plan with a week left. But on arrival in Germany, Gunnell developed a heavy cold. She hid this from her rivals and managed to battle through qualifying and make the final. Such was her state of illness the night before the race that she called a press conference to announce her withdrawal. At the last minute, she had a change of heart and pulled the conference. This proved to be an excellent decision; although feeling well below par, Sally stormed to the Gold, setting a new World Record in the process.
Although her later career was blighted by injury, eventually coming to an end in 1997, Gunnell’s achievements in ’92 and ’93 assured her place in the history books. No other woman has held Commonwealth, European, World, and Olympic track titles concurrently and although her world record has since been broken.
Sally became part of the BBC Sport team and was a regular fixture on Athletics programmes throughout the Noughties, until 2006, interviewing athletes on the finish line and bringing the trackside atmosphere in to millions of living rooms across the UK. She has appeared in numerous TV shows including A Question of Sport and Total Wipeout. She is a regular on the Breakfast News sofas and conducts hundreds of radio interviews each year.
Today, Sally’s mission is to promote health and wellbeing for everybody in the UK. She is a passionate supporter of initiatives that encourage families to be more active. Her corporate work, helping companies to bring health and wellbeing in to the workplace, confirms her formidable reputation as an influencer at the highest levels of business.
Sally’s wellbeing programmes are adapted to run alongside the company’s key messaging, such as leadership, coaching, sustaining excellence, goal setting, or mind and motivation. Sally guides businesses, both large and small, how to communicate that corporate message and inspires and equips them with the ideas, evidence, and materials to help them develop and communicate a successful health and wellbeing programme.
Sally, a working mother of three boys, uses her phenomenal athletics career to inspire and empower others. The synergy between sport and business has allowed Sally to get people to believe in their own ability and become the very best that they can be.
Sally achieves this via motivational keynote speaking and provides insights, tips, and tools that listeners can take away and apply in order to make a real change to their life.
For more information on Sally’s current professional commitments, please click here.