Hope Gordon was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) following years of pain in her left leg. When the leg stopped working after nearly a decade of treatment which unfortunately didn’t help, Hope courageously crowdfunded for surgery and had the leg amputated in 2016.
She was a member of the Scottish swimming team from 2010 until 2018, competing at national and international level competitions, before going on to try canoeing and was then invited to train full-time with the GB para canoe team. She decided to call it a day on competitive swimming and relocated to Nottingham in 2018, after graduating with a 2.1 Honours degree in Sport and Exercise Science from Edinburgh Napier University. In 2021 Hope became a double World Championship silver medalist, adding an additional Worlds silver in 2022.
2022 was a busy year which followed with silver and bronze at the European Championships. Hope also became the first-ever female to represent Paralympics GB in Nordic Skiing at the 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing.
Check out GB Team Paralympic Nordic Skiing and Rower Hope’s first blog about her battle with chronic pain in her leg which led Hope to choose amputation and how she’s been getting on since.