Jeanette Chippington OBE is one of the world’s most successful paddlers ever, with over 30 medals to her name since making her paracanoe debut at the 2011 World Championships.
She joined the British paracanoe team as an already outstanding athlete having competed as a swimmer at five consecutive Paralympic Games.
Chippington made her Paralympic debut at Seoul 1988 before going on to swim at Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, winning a total of 12 medals.
Atlanta 1996 was her most successful Games where she won two gold, one silver and two bronze medals as well as breaking two world records.
Chippington has very much carried that medal record into paracanoeing, becoming Paralympic champion in the women's KL1 as the sport made its debut at Rio 2016.
A MBE for services to canoeing would follow in 2017, a year in which she would also achieve the paracanoe ‘Grand Slam’ holding the Paralympic, European and world titles within the calendar year in the KL1.
Chippington switched to the VL2 for the next Paralympic Games in Tokyo and would win bronze as that particular event made its debut on the paracanoe programme.
In 2022, she won her 15th career World Championship medal with bronze in Canada. In total she also has seven European medals and would be awarded an OBE in 2022.
Chippington first learnt to swim as part of physiotherapy after contracting a virus and only got into canoeing through a friend who nagged her until she gave it a try.