Sophie Kamlish
Sport: Athletics
Event: T44 100m and 200m
Date of birth: 20.08.1996
Coached by: Rob Ellchuk
Within six years of attending a Playground to Podium initiative at the University of Bath in 2011 and being identified as a potential athletics star, Sophie was crowned as World Champion in front of a home crowd at London 2017 – having already appeared at two Paralympic Games during that time.
Sophie, a lower-leg amputee, was invited to join Rob Ellchuk’s training group at the University and first competed on the track in June 2011. Within a year she had made her international debut at the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, winning T44 200m bronze, and was selected for the London 2012 Paralympic Games while still a pupil at Oldfield School – one of her PE teachers was Helen Glover, now a double Olympic rowing champion.
Unfazed by the capacity 80,000-strong crowd at London 2012, Sophie finished fifth in the T44 100m final and sixth in the T44 200m final.
Her first international medal, a T44 200m bronze, came at the 2013 World Championships but there were mixed fortunes at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games as Sophie scorched to a new T44 100m world record in the heats but missed out on a medal by just six-hundredths of a second.
She more than made than amends for that disappointment at the London 2017 World Championships the following year, though, lowering her own world record to 12.90 in the heats before clinching gold in the final.
Her parents run a business called Rosie Flo from their home in Camden, Bath, publishing colouring books for children, and Sophie is also a keen illustrator who took time out from her athletics career to study Illustration and Animation at Kingston University in London.
Sophie returned to the track for the 2019 World Championships in Dubai, where she placed sixth in the T64 100m final.
Notable achievements
2012: T44 100m and 200m finalist at London 2012 Paralympic Games; T44 long-jump silver at Sainsbury’s School Games.
2013: T44 200m bronze at the IPC World Championships in Lyon, France.
2016: T44 100m fourth at Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, new world record.
2017: T44 100m gold and new world record at the IPC World Championships in London.
