Sally Gunnell OBE

Sally Gunnell is a legendary British athlete who remains the only woman ever to hold four major track titles concurrently – Commonwealth, European, Olympic, and World.

She started out on the athletics circuit with Essex Ladies’ Club, initially as a long jumper and pentathlete, before she switched to the 400m hurdles, where she had her most famous successes.

Sally quickly established herself as a force to be reckoned with in British Athletics. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, she achieved the one missing piece from her already impressive trophy cabinet – an Olympic gold medal!

Following her retirement from international sport, she has developed a new career as a television presenter, author, and inspirational speaker.

As an energetic mother of three and successful business leader, Sally is always keen to draw on her knowledge and experience to help inspire and encourage families and employees to get active and healthy.

Call +44 1753 439 289 or email Great British Speakers now to check availability and fees to book Sally Gunnell to speak at or host your next corporate event. Contact us.

Type Of Speaker

After Dinner Diversity Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Female Speakers Health & Wellbeing International Women's Day Mental Health Olympians Resilience Speaker Sport Virtual Speakers

More About Sally Gunnell OBE

Sally Gunnell | Athletics

Sally Gunnell moved from long jump and heptathlon into hurdling when she was just a teenager. She sadly missed out on Olympic selection for the 1984 Olympics, even though she set a UK junior record in the 100m hurdles of 13.30 seconds. This wouldn’t be her only record, and she would go on to win a number of trophies and medals, including:

Olympic Games

– 1 x Gold in 1992 – 400m Hurdles
– 1 x Bronze in 1992 – 4x400m Relay

World Championships

– 1 x Gold in 1993 – 400m Hurdles
– 1 x Silver in 1991 – 400m Hurdles
– 1 x Bronze in 1993 – 4x400m Relay

IAAF World Cup

– 2 x Gold in 1994 – 400m Hurdles, and 4x400m Relay
– 1 x Bronze in 1989 – 400m Hurdles

European Championships

– 1 x Gold in 1994 – 400m Hurdles
– 1 x Bronze in 1990 – 4x400m Relay

European Cup

– 4 x Gold in 1993, 94, 96, 97 – 400m Hurdles
– 2 x Silver in 1989 and 1991 – 400m Hurdles

European Indoor Championships

– 1 x Gold in 1989 – 400m

Commonwealth Games

– 5 x Gold in 100m Hurdles (1986), 400m Hurdles (1990, 1994), 4x400m Relay (1990, 1994)
– 1 x Silver in 1990 – 100m Hurdles

Goodwill Games

– 1 x Gold in 1994 – 400m Hurdles

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Sally Gunnell | Other Work

After retiring in 1997, Sally moved from the track to the television studio, and after a spell with BBC Sport commentating on their athletics coverage, she teamed up with Colin Jackson in 2004 as a mentor on the BBC1 talent show Born to Win, fronted by Dermot O’Leary.

She has also been involved in the BBC’s successful show Run For Glory, the BBC 1 Sports Relief episode of Only Fools on Horses (2006), and has appeared on The Feel Good Factor, You Bet! (1993) where she won alongside Michaela Strachan, This is Your Life (1997), The One Show, Weakest Link (2009), Total Wipeout (2010), and The Cube (2012).

The London 2012 Olympic Games marked the 20^th anniversary of Sally’s historic gold medal-winning run, and she was chosen to be an Olympic panellist as part of the Sky Sports News coverage of the games, offering expert analysis on all things track and field.

Sally Gunnell | Speaking

Sally’s unwavering dedication, motivation, and self-believe that ensured her on-track success now inspires audiences everywhere. Approachable and down-to-earth, she not only tells her own incredible story, but she works with businesses to help them get the very best out of their staff, and shows that with the right mindset, anything is possible.

Speaking Topics

– Resilience

– Mindset and Self-Belief

– Sustaining Excellence

– Athletics

– Leadership

– Teamwork

– Synergy

– Change Management

– The Space Between Talent and Performance

– Mental Attitude

– Need to Achieve vs Fear of Failure

– Olympic Games

– Overcoming Adversity

– Conflict Resolution

– Mental Health and Wellbeing

Sally Gunnell | Keynote Examples

Inspiration and Motivation: Sally explores the fundamental traits of winning, particularly focussing on mental attitude and goal setting. Once goals have been reached, it’s important to understand how to sustain this high level and cope with setbacks – this all requires resilience and a positive mindset. She talks about how she coped after the Olympics, what she learnt about performing under pressure, and the skills that have helped her become an Olympic champion and a successful businesswoman. Sally also covers teamwork, synergy, and the importance of visualisation when it comes to reaching goals.

Resilience and Sustaining Performance: A popular keynote topic, Sally is passionate about helping people understand the importance of resilience and performance. In today’s fast-moving world, just when you think you have achieved what you set out to do, someone moves the goal posts and you have to do a bit more, and this is a recurring theme in life. Sally focusses on what it took her to stay on top and how she uses those skills now in her personal and business life.

Health and Wellbeing: This keynote explores what Sally has learnt about nutrition, goal setting, and building resilience throughout her career as a professional athlete and businesswoman. She focusses on how important maintaining your wellbeing is, and how putting boundaries in place can help you focus on specific areas of our life, thus increasing productivity. She looks at the importance of exercise, eating well, sleep, leadership, and managing stress.

Sally Gunnell Team GB Olympic Hurdler motivational Speaker at Great British Speakers

Sally Gunnell | Clients

A Broadcom Company, Adobe, American Express, Apploi, Aviva, Brammer, British Parking Association, BT, CA Technologies, Elior UK, Gateway Housing Association, Gravesham Borough Council, IRMS, John Lewis, Lloyds TSB, Merck, MTR Crossrail, School Business Servies, Servicesure Autocentres, Simplyhealth, Taking Care, Thomson Reuters, University of Exeter

Sally Gunnell Hire Team GB Olympic Hurdler motivational Speaker book at Great British Speakers

Call +44 1753 439 289 or email Great British Speakers now to book former Olympic champion Sally Gunnell to speak at or host your next corporate event. Contact us.

Testimonials

Sally joined us here at Taking Care, to open up our Learning at Work Week as our key note speaker and she went down a storm with the team here. Her speech with compelling slide show and video clips really fit with the whole learning theme; being your ‘best-self’, how to manage highs and lows, the importance of great physical and mental health, resilience and maintaining peak performance. And all delivered in a lovely relaxed and accessible style. Our teams loved seeing her medals, asking her questions and taking selfies. Our team are still talking about it now and it really did set the whole week up for success. Thanks Sally. You’re welcome back to Devon any time!
Janet Craig, Taking Care, Learning & Development Manager

Sally was extremely natural and engaging which helped our colleagues and clients immediately settle into the event. There was a feeling of familiarity right from the start with Sally but also something very special having a national sporting icon talk to us directly and honestly. The subjects discussed touched diversity, racism, motivation and determination, mental well being, the Olympics, coming up in sport. Varied and inclusive for all with some nice overlaps into the corporate world. I obviously loved having a special audience for 5 minutes at the start with a sporting heroine from my sprinting days at Loughborough and curly hair chat!
Elena Folkes, Thomson Reuters, Director, Strategy & Market Development

We couldn’t have asked for any more from Sally’s keynote at our inaugural National School Business Leaders Day virtual event. She was candid about her experiences and incredibly inspiring, covering topics including mindset and resilience which resonated perfectly with the audience. She was incredibly generous in her advice and delivered everything with a perfect measure of humour. Our delegates offered spontaneous recognition and thanks throughout the speech via the online chat, and afterwards, our social channels were full of awe, enthusiasm and support for the themes Sally covered, and her delivery. I’d also like to mention how brilliant Sally and her team were in the build up to the event, giving of their time to prepare technically and also adding a splash of positive thinking to calm our own pre-event nerves! We would recommend Sally without hesitation and hope that we have the opportunity to work with her again.
Leyla Tovey, School Business Services Ltd, Managing Director

Sally is one of the most inspirational and motivating speakers we’ve ever had join us on our TechWomen programme, one of BT’s key diversity programmes. Throughout the past 12 months, Sally has joined us numerous times on our programme and our TechWomen always love her stories. More recently, Sally created a bespoke session for us around mental fitness which went down a storm. Sally always gets on board with your goals and objectives to make sure your attendees get the most out of their time with her and is an absolute joy to work with!
Rachel Brackenbury, BT, Talent Programme Manager

As part of our World Mental Health Day support this year we welcomed Olympic hero Sally Gunnell who told her story of resilience and mental strength to achieve success. Our aim of the talk was to inspire Adobe employees to invest in their own mental fitness so they can too can be at their best both personally and professionally. Thank you Sally! It gave many of us an emotional trip down memory lane to see the Barcelona race once more!
Laura Hocking, Adobe, EMEA Physical Wellbeing Program Manager

Sally’s speech was highly inspirational and motivational. Her story, while unrelated to our profession, was easily translatable to our line of work. She went down a storm with our delegates and would be an ideal speaker for virtually any audience.
Matthew Stephenson, IRMS, Chair

We were thrilled that Sally was able to come and open our new gym at Bury St Edmunds Leisure Centre. She spoke to customers and staff for hours, posed happily for photos and gave countless interviews to the local media. Sally is a fantastic ambassador for sport and fitness. She talked passionately about her sport and the importance of keeping active. Sally’s presence at our event certainly helped raise our profile and the profile of fitness locally and nationally. She was a pleasure to work with.
Warren Smyth, Abbeycroft Leisure, CEO

Sally was an ideal choice to open our new state of the art physiotherapy gym. During our exclusive opening event she was professional, engaging and really down to earth which made everyone feel comfortable. We cater for people with sports related injuries and Sally gave an inspirational speech; in which she highlighted well from her own experiences about the necessity for a gym that provides physiotherapy services such as ours. We were overwhelmed by her willingness to chat to everyone and took an active interest in the service The Horder Centre can now provide.
Luke Garner, The Horder Centre, Marketing Co-ordinator

The girls were full of Sally Gunnell’s talk after the event. Girls have told their teachers they have been inspired in their sport and academic studies to aim high. At a Parents’ evening two days later parents were volunteering positive comments about the visit and explaining that their daughters had recounted the messages given by Sally. I have no doubt that Sally’s wise words will stay with the girls for many, many years.
St Albans High School for Girls, Headmistress

She was so professional and accommodating – a real pleasure to work with. Her after lunch speech was excellent; perfectly judged for the audience and you could literally hear a pin drop whilst she was talking. I’ve had lots of really positive comments from our guests saying how much they enjoyed it already. I’d also like to thank her for letting so many of our team have photos taken with her – and for letting them hold her medals – they really appreciated the time she gave to them. Sally’s talk perfectly accompanied the theme of our employee awards event and I’d have no hesitation in recommending her to anyone looking for a top notch presenter who is capable of really engaging with any audience.
Julia Dixon, Support Services Babcock International, Head of Communications

Sally was the ideal speaker to engage our audience of HR Directors. Our company regularly engages with HR Directors and are always trying to find a topic and speaker who will resonate with them. Sally delivered a highly interactive talk on ‘resilience’ explaining to our audience of HR Directors the challenges she overcame in her athletic career and how this translated into her business career. Sally provided an ideal blend of theory and practice, which resonated perfectly with the audience. I would thoroughly recommend Sally to other organisations.
Kevin Matthews, Leathewaite, Global Head of Marketing