David Smith MBE (born 21 April 1978) is a British adaptive rower who won a gold medal at the

2012 Summer Paralympics The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international Multi-sport event, multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Sum ...

Personal life

Smith was born on 21 April 1978 in

Dunfermline Dunfermline (; , ) is a city, parish, and former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland, from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. Dunfermline was the de facto capital of the Kingdom of Scotland between the 11th and 15th centuries. The earliest ...

, Fife, Scotland. He was born with a

club foot Clubfoot is a congenital or acquired defect where one or both feet are supinated, rotated inward and plantar flexion, downward. Congenital clubfoot is the most common congenital malformation of the foot with an incidence of 1 per 1000 births. ...

and for the first three years of his life he had his bones repeatedly broken and reset to correct his foot's alignment. He graduated from the

University of Bath The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. Bath received its royal charter in 1966 as Bath University of Technology, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University ...

in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in sports performance. In 2010 he underwent emergency surgery after doctors found a tumour inside his spinal cord at cervical spine level. The surgery left him temporarily paralysed, an issue that was later determined to be the result of a blood clot. He is a

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a ve ...

Early sporting career

He earned a Black Belt in

Karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ), also , is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tī'' in Okinawan) un ...

and was in the British squad for 6 years. He took up sprinting in a desire to compete at the Olympics as karate was not an Olympic sport, and became East of Scotland 400m champion in mainstream athletics, and took third in the 200m behind Olympian

Ian Mackie Ian Mackie (born 27 February 1975) is a former sprinter who competed in the men's 100m competition at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Biography He was 100/200 inter counties champion and won five Scottish 100 metre titles, and the 200m title in 2 ...

. But running round bends caused stress fractures which forced him to quit. He turned to

bobsleigh Bobsleigh or bobsled is a winter sport in which teams of 2 to 4 athletes make timed speed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobslei ...

, because straight-line running was fine and made the GB team as a brakeman. But neck and back pains interrupted training and he missed a

2006 Winter Olympics The 2006 Winter Olympics (), officially the XX Olympic Winter Games () and also known as Torino 2006, were a winter multi-sport event held from 10 to 26 February in Turin, Italy. This marked the second time Italy had hosted the Winter O ...

spot by one-hundredth of a second.

Rowing

Smith was introduced to adaptive rowing in 2009 at a Paralympic Potential Day run by the

British Paralympic Association The British Paralympic Association (BPA) is the National Paralympic Committee for ''Great Britain'' (GBR), and is responsible for the United Kingdom's participation in the Paralympic Games The Paralympic Games or Paralympics is a periodi ...

. He competes in the legs, trunks and arms adaptive mixed coxed four (LTAMix4+) event in which he won a gold medal at the 2009

World Rowing Championships The World Rowing Championships is an international Rowing (sport), rowing regatta organized by International Rowing Federation, FISA (the International Rowing Federation). It is a week-long event held at the end of the northern hemisphere summer ...

, competing in a crew with Vicky Hansford,

Naomi Riches Naomi Joy Riches Order of the British Empire, MBE, DL (born on 15 June 1983) is a British Adaptive rowing, adaptive rower who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics and a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics. Personal life Ric ...

, James Roe and

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Rhiannon Jones. In 2011 he competed at the

held at

Lake Bled Lake Bled () is a lake in the Julian Alps of the Upper Carniolan region of northwestern Slovenia, where it adjoins the town of Bled. The area is a tourist destination. The lake is from Ljubljana International Airport and from the capital ci ...

Bled Bled (; ,''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 146. in older sources also ''Feldes'') is a town on Lake Bled in the Upper Carniolan regio ...

, Slovenia. He won the gold medal in the LTAMix4+ event alongside crewmates

Pam Relph Pamela Lillian Relph MBE (born 14 November 1989) is a British adaptive rower who won gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Paralympics, thus becoming the first double gold medallist in Paralympic rowing. Personal life Relph was ...

, Naomi Riches, James Roe and cox, Lily van den Broecke. They completed the one kilometre course in a time of three minutes, 27.10 seconds, finishing nearly five seconds ahead of runners-up Canada. The result qualified a boat for Great Britain into the

in London. The crew repeated their gold medal result at the Munich World Cup event in 2012. Smith was selected along with Relph, Riches, Roe, and van den Broeke, to compete for

Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Great Britain competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012 as the host nation. A total of 288 athletes were selected to compete along with 13 other team members such as sighted guides. The c ...

in the mixed coxed four event. The event took place between 31 August and 2 September at

Eton Dorney Dorney Lake (also known as Eton College Rowing Centre, and as Eton Dorney as a 2012 Summer Olympics venue) is a purpose-built Rowing (sport), rowing lake and Meetings & Events Venue in England. It is near the village of Dorney, Buckinghamshire, ...

. The Great Britain crew won gold. Smith was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(MBE) in the

2013 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2013 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...

for services to rowing.

Cycling

Despite his success at rowing, medical issues forced Smith to retire from that sport, and he subsequently joined British Cycling's Paralympic Academy programme in 2014. He continued to compete at Paracycling despite further surgery on the tumour, taking ninth place at the final Para-cycling Road World Cup of the 2015 season in Pietermaritzburg, but in January 2016 he announced that he'd need another operation that ended his plans to compete at the 2016 Paralympic games.

References

External links