Lucy Shuker inspires the boarders with her talk

Wednesday night saw us welcome Lucy Shuker, the UK’s number 1 wheelchair tennis player. Ranked 7 in the World, Lucy spoke to the Hazlegrove boarding community about her life, her childhood dreams and motorbike accident that left her paralysed from the chest down.

What has happened since has been extraordinary and has seen her take up wheelchair tennis with enormous success. She reached the quarter finals in Beijing 2008 and then won bronze in the doubles in London 2012. She has been a Wimbledon finalist and achieved many other accolades within the sport. She is now training hard for the road to Rio this coming summer in the hope she can emulate her success thus far and come back to the UK with gold in her hand.

Her talk was utterly inspiring. She was honest, humourous and humble in bucket-loads and wooed her audience with her inspirational tale. As ever, the boarders asked her some searching and challenging questions which she duly answered. Her message of positivity and perseverance resulted in many of the children staying behind to continue chatting to her and holding the bronze medal from the London Olympics. We felt most honoured to welcome her to Hazlegrove and assured her we would follow her every step of the way to Rio and beyond.

For further information on Lucy, do look at her website: www.lucyshuker.com Her crowd-funding page to help her achieve her road to Rio is https://www.pledgesports.org/projects/wheelchair-tennis-sponsorship-lucy-shuker/

Click here to see the album of photos in Flickr