Jody Cundy - Biography

Biography

Born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. Jody grew up in Norfolk with his parents Alan, 64, a fitter-welder, and Ann, 58, an accountancy clerk, and younger brother Ashley. He is now based in Manchester where he trains with the Great Britain Cycling squad. Cundy was born with a deformed foot, which was amputated when he was three years old. When Jody was aged 10, his parents met a disabled girl's parents and they discussed disability swimming. Jody's parents found out more about it and decided to get him involved, and he then started breaking all the swimming records for his age group. After become a leading member of his local King's Lynn club's team, he made his international debut at the Swimming World Championships in Malta in 1994. "I was," he recalls, "a rank outsider. I knocked four seconds off my personal best and won the world 100m butterfly title at the first attempt." But he was, he says, "never a naturally gifted swimmer. I don't have the build. I just worked very hard: 10 or 11 two-hour sessions in the pool each week, and weights and core strength work – 30 hours-plus a week." He later became a top athlete, and represented Great Britain three times in swimming at the Paralympic Games from 1996 to 2004, winning three gold and two bronze medals. After a 2004 Athens Paralympic Games that landed him a "not great" bronze, Cundy joined the high-performance swimming centre at Swansea.

In 2006, he switched from swimming to cycling, competing at international events in the C4 disability category. Winning gold in the kilo in his debut at the 2006 world championships, he repeated this feat in 2007 and 2009 also taking the team sprint title at both events.

Representing Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, Cundy broke the world record on the way to winning the gold in the 1km Time Trial with a time of 1 minute 5.466 seconds. This made him one of only a handful of athletes that have become Paralympic champion in two different sports.

Cundy was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

He was selected for the Great Britain team at the 2012 Summer Paralympics. He was expected to win gold in the C4/5 Men's 1 km time trial, but slipped shortly after starting, ostensibly due to the starting gate not working properly, gripping his wheel for too long. The technical delegate of the International Cycling Union, Louis Barbeau, disagreed, refusing him a restart. Cundy then erupted into a rage, swearing and throwing water bottles. He later apologised to the crowd, though made clear that he still disagreed with the decision. He won bronze in the C4/5 men's 4 km pursuit, racing Diego Gomez of Colombia. In the first kilometre of the race, he clocked a time of 1:05.317 in the heats, which would have won the 1 km time trial.

He is the fastest solo Paralympian of all time, completing the flying 200m in a time of 10.805 seconds (66.635 km/h).

On 12 October 2012, Paralympian Jody Cundy MBE was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University with a ceremony at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.