This Girl Can: Blaire's story
Television adverts, social media posts and billboards across the land have advertised Sport England’s latest campaign This Girl Can. It’s a sassy celebration of women everywhere no matter how they exercise, how they look, or how sweaty they get.
The national charity, the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) is supporting This Girl Can to ensure more disabled women can get involved in the campaign.
In January, Sport England’s latest Active People Survey was published. It showed that 121,700 fewer disabled people and 125,000 fewer women are regularly taking part in sport. EFDS believes that the results reinforce the importance of understanding and responding to disabled people’s needs and preferences much more effectively.
Campaigns like This Girl Can will play an important role in increasing the numbers of all active women, especially those living with impairments and health conditions.
If you can't go round a barrier, go through it! That’s Blaire Hannan’s approach to life.
Blaire- This Girl Can
When CRPS and Fixed Dystonia - a neurological condition sparking chronic pain and muscular spasms particularly affecting her lower back and legs – saw Blaire become a wheelchair user in her mid-teens, she thought her sporty days were over.
But a move to a new school and the chance to meet the school’s special educational needs coordinator – or SENCO for short – introduced her to sailing, a sport that would become her life.
By 2011 Blaire, from Bristol, had got so good at sailing she was invited to join the Paralympic Transition Squad, training with the country’s best Paralympic sailors towards the goal of one day representing ParalympicsGB at a future Games herself.
Now also a race coach, the 25-year-old explains how sailing has given her a new lease of life over the past decade.
"When I went into the wheelchair, I had to move school. The SENCO had just been involved in setting up Bristol Sailability, a charity that specialised in supporting disabled people to get on the water. Knowing I was very sporty before my diagnosis, he encouraged my to have a go at sailing. So I did and never looked back.
“Initially the main attraction was the freedom I felt. Being able to control the boat independently, whilst learning a new skill was really liberating. My competitive side soon kicked in and I enjoyed seeing my skills develop, and competing against others who soon became good friends.
“Sailing is now an occupation and a hobby for me. I am now an RYA Race Coach and closely work with Sailability to help get all sailors on the water.”
Blaire sails a boat called a 2.4 Metre (2.4mR), which is adapted so that all the controls are rigged to the front and steering is controlled by the tiller and moved by hand. She has a ‘race car’ seat in the middle of the boat, which helps her to lean and balance it when turning or it’s windy. Most importantly the boat can’t capsize.
Although, unfortunately, it looks like sailing events won’t be contested at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo, the 2.4mR remains a very vibrant international class, raced by non-disabled and disabled sailors from all over the world. One of the boat’s biggest appeals is it can be sailed equally well by anyone, making it a truly inclusive class.
World and European Championships are contested annually around the globe, while in the UK many sailors compete regularly at Open meetings and other events. Blaire continues to be a familiar face at all of these.
She continues: “
"The best thing about sailing is literally anyone can sail, you simply adapt the boat for each sailor’s needs. The best events are the Open events, where non-disabled and disabled sailors compete against each other on an equal playing field so the race comes down to your sailing ability, not your physical mobility.
“The biggest value I learnt being part of the Paralympic Transition Squad was the Paralympic ‘can-do’ attitude. This came at such a crucial point in my life, and I think is responsible for me achieving so many things we thought would be impossible. They taught me that if you can't go round a barrier, go through it!”
Blaire recently completed a four-year course studying speech and language therapy at Manchester University, a far cry from the days where she admits, matter-of-factly, that the breakdown of her muscles put her at risk of organ failure and facing death.
An emergency operation at Frenchay Hospital in her home city saw two battery-powered deep brain stimulators inserted to help block messages from the brain that damaged the rest of her body. The result was she regained movement in her upper body, with the stimulator ‘reprogramming’ her brain 24/7 for the rest of her life.
Not one for looking back, Blaire now only has her eyes on the future and how she can inspire not just more disabled people to get into sailing, but more females of all abilities too.
She adds:
“My own ambitions are always to keep developing my sailing skills and coaching skills. It's important to encourage everyone into sports, especially females. The skills and values you can learn from sport, such as, determination, respect, discipline, organisation, motivation, etc, can be transferred to other areas of an individual’s life, helping them to achieve their life goals. Sport is way more than getting fit and having a social life. It teaches vital life lessons in a fun and safe environment.”
Through RYA Sailability over 53,000 young disabld people and adults are introduced to sailing per year, and many go on to sail on a regular basis. Find out more on their website.
Join the conversation and follow @thisgirlcanuk on Twitter and use hashtag #thisgirlcan and 'like it' on Facebook, visit the website on www.thisgirlcan.co.uk and check out the exclusive campaign film previews.
