Chrissie Wellington, the head of participation at parkrun and four-time Ironman World Champion, has been named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours list.
Rewarded for her services to sport and charity, Wellington was among 1,196 people on the honours list, with more than three quarters of the recipients people who have undertaken work in their local community.
Wellington starred in the October 2015 edition of
Health Club Management, where she talked about her unusual ascent to the top of endurance competitions and her work with parkrun. Founded by Paul Sinton-Hewitt in 2004, parkrun provides free weekly 5km running events around the world and
has 800,000 members in the UK alone. As head of participation, Wellington’s role is to help break down potential barriers and to inspire people “to do something they might not otherwise have thought to do.”
On receiving news of her OBE, Wellington tweeted to her 87,000 Twitter followers: “2015 – married the man of my dreams, gave birth to our beautiful daughter and honoured with an OBE. What an amazing year.”
She later added: “May my OBE also be dedicated to everyone involved in parkrun ... People who are truly changing lives each and every day.”
Elsewhere on the honours list, several senior figures at Public Health England were rewarded for services to public health, including director for health protection and medical director Professor Paul Cosford. Meanwhile, 20-time champion jockey Tony McCoy –
the headline speaker at last year’s ukactive Flame Conference – received a knighthood for services to horse racing.
To read an interview with Chrissie Wellington, from the October 2015 edition of
Health Club Management magazine, click
here.
