Meat Management talked to gold medal-winning athlete Sally Gunnell OBE to find out more about her life as an international athlete and beyond, and to discover what guests can look forward to when she hosts the WIMIA ceremony in London on 20th November.
Hosting this year’s Women In Meat Industry Awards is gold medal-winning athlete Sally Gunnell OBE. Her world-beating performances on the track have been an inspiration to many, and Sally continues to empower others through public speaking and her Life’s Hurdle wellbeing platform, but, as she shares with Meat Management, it is often through tough times that we learn the most.
Success on the track
Sally is best known for her success in the 400-metre hurdles event, winning an Olympic gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and following that up with a world title at the Stuttgart World Championships in 1993 in a world-record time. During this remarkable period in her athletics career, Sally also took gold at both the European and Commonwealth games, making her the only British athlete to hold all four ‘major’ titles at the same time.
Talking about standing on the top of the podium at the Olympic Games, she told us that it almost felt like an out-of-body experience, saying: “At the time, it doesn’t actually feel like it’s happening. You’ve done all the build-up, you’ve gone out there and performed, but nobody has prepared you for this bit afterwards, and you just cannot take it in.”
“Sport has taught me that there is always a way.”
Sally Gunnell
For Sally, her route to this success started at a young age, when her coach spotted her potential at 14, and the hard work and commitment to athletics began. Training three times a week took her from her home on her family’s farm in Essex to Crystal Palace, where she was coached with other aspiring athletes. And although Sally loved the training and the camaraderie of her teammates, her journey to Olympic victory wasn’t all plain sailing. She reflected: “In hindsight, you realise that the bits you learn are when things go wrong. As a sportsperson, you fail nearly every day when you’re on the training pitch, because you don’t get the hurdle right or you don’t get the stride pattern right, so you’re always trying to perfect things and be better.
“There’s quite a lot of failure, but that is how I learned. I had a year when I was injured and there was a year when I should have won a European medal, but I was sick, but it’s almost like I had to go through those situations, and that is what sport has taught me – that there is always a way.”
Empowering women
Sally is keen to share that message of resilience in the work she now does as a public speaker and through the launch of her Life’s Hurdle wellbeing platform, which is designed to support women to feel stronger and more confident through midlife. Sally commented: “What I’ve learned is that women together are very, very powerful. I have an amazing community of women and we’re good at supporting one another.
“We’re all going through some tough times, but it’s about being kind to yourself and looking after yourself so you can look after others, and I think that’s what relates to lots of people.”
Sally’s positive message of mutual support, empowerment and resilience has come from her personal experiences as an athlete looking up to the women who went before her, and also since she retired from competitive sport working in the corporate world and meeting women running large businesses, bringing up families and overcoming challenges.
Farming and the outdoors
The experiences and advice that Sally can share resonate with the Women In Meat Industry Awards as we recognise and celebrate success in our own industry. And growing up on a livestock farm in Essex, means that Sally also knows a thing or two about the food industry.
“Farming life taught me that you’ve got to work hard for what you get.”
Sally Gunnell
Although Sally didn’t choose to follow her parents into a career in farming, she does credit the lifestyle as a contributing factor in her success as an athlete: “I spent hours running around the farm. That was my childhood: climbing up the bails, just being outside. And my dad always puts it down to drinking milk straight from the cows!
“Farming life taught me that you’ve got to work hard for what you get. So, I think that was part of it, as well.”
For Sally, life on the farm gave her an understanding of where her food came from, and a love of the countryside and growing that has stayed with her throughout her life. “I still live in the countryside,” she explained. “I have to have space. I have to be surrounded by animals, and I love my vegetable garden and my greenhouse. Getting outside is my saviour in life. It’s my me time.”
Lifelong well-being
Sally’s greatest passion has always been running and fitness, and what she eats has been an important part of that. She said: “When I was running, I was quite strict; it was all about eating enough fuel and the right fuel. A lot of it was confidence; to stand on the line and know you’ve eaten everything right is a powerful tool.
“The day you retire, and the years afterwards, you start to think about your health and wanting to eat healthily because you want to feel good in yourself. So, I eat a lot of protein, which the audience will be very happy to know! I still eat my red meat; I think that has been bred into me from my dad.”
Sally will be sharing more stories and insights when she joins us to host the Women In Meat Industry Awards at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London on Friday 20th November 2026. For more information on this year’s finalists and to book tickets, visit womeninmeatawards.com.
The 2026 Women In Meat Industry Awards partners:
