Lauren Rowles

Lauren Rowles OBE is a British Paralympian and elite athlete who specialises in resilience, goal setting, and overcoming adversity through sport. Described by British Rowing as the greatest Paralympic rower of all time, she is the only athlete in the world to win three Paralympic gold medals in rowing, including her breakthrough victory at Rio 2016 aged just 18. After retiring from rowing in 2025, Lauren is now returning to wheelchair track racing to complete the sporting journey she began as a teenager, targeting the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Her presentations equip audiences with powerful strategies for navigating setbacks, sustaining peak performance, and embracing new challenges with confidence and determination.

At just 13 years old, Lauren Rowles woke one morning in 2012 to find herself paralysed from the waist down. What followed were eight months in hospitals and rehabilitation units, a diagnosis of Transverse Myelitis, and a life permanently changed. Yet rather than abandoning her childhood dream of becoming an elite athlete, Lauren channelled her determination into a new path. Inspired by the London 2012 Paralympic Games, she discovered wheelchair track racing at 14, quickly progressing to represent Great Britain at the Commonwealth Games and Junior World Championships before being scouted by British Rowing in 2015. Five months after taking her first stroke, she won silver at the Senior World Rowing Championships and secured her place at Rio 2016, where she claimed Paralympic gold aged just 18.

Lauren's rowing career established her as a dominant force in parasport. Appointed MBE in the 2016 New Year's Honours List and later elevated to OBE in 2024 for her services to rowing, she became the only athlete in the world to win three Paralympic gold medals in rowing. British Rowing has described her as the greatest Paralympic rower of all time. Her achievements came despite significant setbacks, including three major surgeries since 2016, yet she returned to international competition in 2019 to claim her first World Championship title and set a championship record. Her partnership with Laurence Whiteley produced historic results and cemented a phenomenal legacy within the sport. In 2025, after a decade of success and knowing it would never get better than this, Lauren retired from rowing to pursue the next chapter of her sporting journey.

Lauren has returned to wheelchair track racing to complete the unfinished business she left behind when she transitioned to rowing. With her last junior racing event taking place at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, her goal is to compete when the Games return to the city in 2026, creating what she describes as a full circle moment. As a speaker, Lauren delivers powerful insights into navigating adversity, sustaining peak performance, and embracing new challenges with confidence. Her presentations draw on lived experience of overcoming life-altering setbacks, achieving at the highest level, and finding the courage to start again. Audiences gain practical strategies for goal setting, teamwork, and maintaining a champion mindset through change. Lauren equips people with the tools to turn obstacles into opportunities and proves that with determination and resilience, extraordinary achievements remain possible even when the path forward looks entirely different from the one originally planned.