New Year’s Honour For Visually Impaired Tokyo Gold Medal Winning Rower!

Here at RNIB Connect Radio we were very pleased to see a number of blind and partially sighted people honoured in the 2022 New Year's Honours list including many Paralympics GB medal winners from the Tokyo Paralympic Games.

Connect Radio’s Toby Davey caught up with Ellen Buttrick MBE, visually impaired rower who along with the rest of the Paralympics GB Adaptive Rowing Coxed 4 Team won Gold in an amazing finish at the Tokyo Paralympic Games to find out from Ellen what being honoured with her MBE means to her. 

Ellen began by telling Toby about when she first heard about the MBE, how difficult it was for her trying to keep the news a secret until the announcement of the New Year’s Honours list on 1 January 2022 and how proud she felt being honoured with her MBE.  

Ellen shared with Toby the reaction and good wishes from her family, friends and fellow rowers on the news of her MBE and what it means to her as a visually impaired athlete and rower.

Ellen also said that being honoured with her MBE would help to raise the profile of visually impaired sport and inspire other visually impaired people to get into sport too. 

Ellen ended by telling Toby about what is next for her as an adaptive rower and her thoughts about her next competition with the World  Championships in September 2022.

If you are interested in finding out more about getting into rowing as a visually impaired person and more about adaptive rowing then do visit the British Rowing website via the following link and search for adaptive rowing - https://www.britishrowing.org


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