Having been born without the lower half of both of his legs and a strong passion for sport, Richard started out as a swimming teacher at Clifton Leisure Centre in Nottingham and went onto compete in ice sledge hockey. His professional career began when he competed in the 2006 Winter Paralympics in Turin before beginning to train extensively to be able to participate in the marathon.
Using his high-performance carbon composite blades, he has run a total of 24 marathons and managed to become the only straight leg double amputee to break a world record marathon of two hours, 42 minutes and 52 seconds. When he was denied participation in the 2012 marathon, Whitehead turned his focus to the London Paralympics. He sprinted to gold in the 200m T42 Athletics event and broke a world record time of 24.38 seconds which was awarded an MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list.
In 2013, Whitehead was finally able to compete in the marathon again and managed to come to a staggering 23rd place with a time of three hours, 15 minutes and 53 seconds. Also that year he was made the first-ever patron of Sarcoma UK and patron of Gedling Sports Partnership, before launching his own fundraising campaign for Scope and Sarcoma UK named Richard Whitehead Runs Britain. In the bid to become the first double amputee to run the length of Britain, Richard started from John O’Groats in the far north of Scotland and finished in Land’s End despite coming across a few obstacles along the way. In 2021, Richard competed at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, claiming a Paralympic Silver in the T61 200m.
Having proven what it really means to be mentally resilient and determined, Richard Whitehead is able to share his advice and techniques with a wide range of audiences. He refers to his experiences from the Paralympics, running many marathons and his remarkable run of Britain to explain how he built up his mental and physical ability over time. Without fail, Richard is able to inject motivation into his listeners leaving them feeling empowered to achieve their goals.
