Wokingham’s eight gold medal-winning Paralympian has had to withdraw from the Tokyo games.
Sophie Christiansen, 33, as a child went to All Saints Primary School, Wokingham, said that she was “absolutely heartbroken” to announce that she and her horse Louie would not take part.
She said: “There’s always that risk with equestrian sport, and unfortunately it was decided Louie wouldn’t have been able to give his best due to a minor veterinary issue.”
And she added: “I am truly gutted also for my team that worked tirelessly to get me selected and everyone who helped me fundraise and donated.”
While at All Saints, then Whitelocke Infants and Palmer Juniors, visiting physiotherapists took Sophie, who has cerebral palsy, to Riding for the Disabled at Warfield. She says riding gave her new freedom.
Sophie also loved playing football with the boys at break time. The school let her get on with her love of sport.
As she hasn’t gone to Tokyo, she’s free to appear on Channel 4 television’s Paralympics coverage and did so last Thursday – available by visiting https://paralympics.channel4.com. Sophie is on the breakfast show and on the light-hearted The Last Leg show.
The British Paralympics team leader Penny Briscoe said Sophie was an “incredible athlete, ambassador and advocate for the Paralympic movement.”
Despite the Tokyo setback, Sophie, who lives with her boyfriend Peter at Farnborough, already has her mind set on the next games. They would be her fifth.
“It says a lot about the team that I have created that I am instantly looking on to Paris 2024; whereas, in 2016, I was so miserable even with my success that I was contemplating retiring,” she wrote on social media.
She told Wokingham Today on Tuesday that her misery after the 2016 Rio games, despite her three gold medals there, related to the team around her at home at the time.
Sophie is a battler on many fronts. She wants more awareness of athletes’ mental health – a cause at the Olympic Games. “It’s still rather a taboo subject. In an elite sport [mental health] is still seen as a weakness.
“People see me as a very smiley person…[But] you put your heart and soul into this sport. It’s really tough [though] we do have psychologists and other help,” she said.
Sophie says her sport needs more funding and other support. She hopes Tokyo will show the standard of horses and coaching needed and that the British equestrian community and others will support para-dressage riders more, like they do for able-bodied teams.
Finding the right horse for Tokyo was incredibly tough. “If you have my Paris horse sitting in your field, or would like to join the journey as an owner, or would like to help the other talented young para-riders I mentor, hit me up,” she asked.
“I’m relying on finding the right horse I can afford [for Paris]. It might not happen.” The horse needs to be a stunner.
A suitable one would cost at least £50,000, much more expensive than ten to 20 years ago. Keeping her horses cost £3,000 a month. “If only I was a swimmer,” she joked.
She has launched Sophie’s Gold Club with membership at £25 a year, giving: “A unique experience into the world of para-sport via personal updates, yard visits, behind the scenes access on competition days, discounts with associated sponsors” and other benefits.
Visit www.sophiechristiansen.co.uk/goldclub to join.
Sophie believes athletes benefit mentally from having jobs as well as doing their training.
She is a software developer at investment bank Goldman Sachs for two days a week.
On BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, she pleaded for fairness for disabled people, saying she couldn’t get into her local corner shop because it had a step. She hoped the Paralympics would inspire people to accept other challenges.
And she complained that there was no British Sign Language interpreter when Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave Covid announcements: “If the government doesn’t comply with the Equality Act, we have no hope,” she said.
After Sophie’s earlier Paralympic success, All Saints School created the Sophie Christiansen award for sporting endeavour which she presented for the first time.
Sophie has been awarded the CBE for services to para-equestrianism and she won a Women of the Future Award for her “ferocious determination to succeed”.
