Photos by Bobby Gavin
UK Athletics and the Honours List
The athletics community in Scotland is once again celebrating success in the New Year Honours List.
We are delighted to see Paralympic Champion Samantha Kinghorn and long-serving endurance Official and administrator, Sandra Hardace, both recognised in the King’s awards thjs midweek.
Sammi, who of course won gold in the T53 100m in Paris last summer and picked up four other medals with Paralympic GB, lands the OBE (after previously having been conferred with the MBE).
Sandra, a wonderful stalwart of our sport over five decades, will receive the MBE for services to athletics. .
Congratulations to both and to their families!
Sammi has been prominent in Paralympic sport for many years now having first competed internationally in the wheelchair events at the Glasgow 2024 Commonwealth Games.
Records and medals have followed since and the Borders athlete was memorably named captain of the Paralympic GB team at the Paralympic Games in Paris last summer.
What happened next was Sammi winning no fewer than five medals, four of them silver and four of them in individual events. The icing on Sammi’s cake was that T53 100m gold in a Championship Record in the Stade to France.
Sandra’s first involvement in cross country was as the U13 National Champion in 1975, but few could have forecast then the lifetime contribution she would make to our sport.
Sandra began officiating in 1996 with the SWCCU, and has since officiated at numerous National and District cross country and road running events in a host of senior roles.
She also officiated at the European Cross Country Championships in in 2003 and the World Cross Country Championships in 2008.
Sandra is now the scottishathletics East District Road and Cross Country Commission Secretary; President of the East District Cross Country League; and a member of the Road and Cross Country Commission.
Sandra is also a well-respected Level-4 Track official with a range of national and international experience, as well as an esteemed coach with Livingston AC who has coached endurance athletes from club level to GB vests.
Tags:
New Year’s Honours List, Samantha Kinghorn, Sandra Hardacre
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