World canoe champion Emma Wiggs MBE says she did not know she was gay until she was 30. At the same age Wiggs, now 40, tried canoeing for the first time.
And she thought that coaching staff were ‘absolutely bonkers’ for suggesting she could compete in the 2016 Rio Paralympics. Wiggs caught an unidentified virus during a gap year in Australia aged 18, which caused paralysis in her arms and legs.
But she told the BBC LGBT Sport Podcast she was initially in denial about being disabled. She said: ‘I had contracted this virus.
Overnight I was paralysed in my arms and legs. Life suddenly looked very different. ‘I was quite poorly so I don’t think it really hit home to me.