Kadeena’s plucky path to becoming a ParalympicsGB golden girl

Her mother, Jasmin Cox Williams, said, “Kadeena would scare me sometimes as she’d come towards me at full speed. She used to fall a lot and her knees would be cut and bruised. You would expect her not to want to get back on, but she would simply let me clean her knees up, then be straight back on the bike.”

A willingness to dust herself down and get on with it would serve Kadeena well on her journey to becoming para-sport’s ultimate all-rounder.

At the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro she won a gold medal in the women’s C4-5 cycling time trial and another gold in the T38 400m sprint. At the age of 33 she is the first Paralympian in a generation to strike gold in two sports at the same Games.

Kadeena’s first love was hockey, but when her coach saw her speed on the field he suggested she try athletics. She excelled as a sprinter, but in May 2014 her world was turned upside down when she suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

She said, “I was horrified that my life was going to revolve around not being independent. I managed to use sport to give me a goal and give me something I could control, and it was kind of what allowed me to get over it in a relatively short period of time.

“The diagnosis has definitely changed the way that I think about things and my outlook. I think now more about living each day as it comes and taking every opportunity that's in front of me.”

The process of coming to terms with her disability led to a shift in her sporting role models. She said, “As a Paralympic athlete I'm surrounded by people doing amazing things every single day. These are the people that became my inspiration.

“When you're with people that have got everything against them, who have had so many setbacks but still push through things, they're the people that become your inspiration.”

Kadeena followed her success in Rio by winning two cycling gold medals at the Tokyo Paralympics. She’s looking forward to Paris 2024, but admits she faces some challenges particularly in regard to sprinting.

She said, “It is a balancing act. I’ve got a great physio team and we just make sure that I’m staying in one piece. National Lottery funding and the system it supports has helped me keep my career going.”

As a member of ParalympicsGB, Kadeena has the backing of National Lottery funding which allows her to train full-time and have access to world-class coaches, facilities and medical support. When it comes to elite athletes, your ticket is their ticket to Paris

Those close to Kadeena all attest to her determination. Jasmin said, “What she was like as a tiny child on a bike is what she is like now. She gets straight back up.”

27th August 2024