Jonnie Peacock

Jonnie Peacock was five when he contracted meningitis at home near Cambridge. His mother was told he was unlikely to survive the night. He did, but the infection destroyed the tissue in his right leg and it was amputated below the knee. He grew up playing football with a prosthetic leg, and was good enough to be picked for school teams, but nobody thought of him as an athlete.

That changed at 15, when he went along to a talent identification day run by the British Paralympic body after the 2008 Games. He was measured, tested and told he might be able to sprint. He had never used a running blade. Within three years he was the fastest amputee sprinter in the world, breaking the 100 metres record in the summer of 2012.

The final at London 2012 was one of the most anticipated of the Games, with the South African Oscar Pistorius the established star. Peacock, 19, silenced a crowd of 80,000 with a raised finger before the start and then won in 10.90 seconds. Four years later in Rio he defended the title.

He was the first amputee to compete on Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, and won a joint bronze in Tokyo in 2021 after a dead heat that could not be separated by the finish photo. He has been outspoken about the cost and quality of prosthetic limbs available to ordinary amputees.