To mark the forthcoming International Women’s Day on Sunday 8th March, organisers of the annual Women In Meat Industry Awards have confirmed Olympic gold medallist Sally Gunnell OBE as this year’s VIP host of the Women In Meat Industry Awards (WIMIA) dinner and ceremony, taking place on 20th November in London.
Editor of Meat Management magazine, Gwen Mostyn commented: “We are absolutely thrilled that Sally Gunnell will be with us as our host on Friday 20th November, and once again we look forward to another fantastic evening at the 5-star Royal Lancaster Hotel to celebrate brilliant talent and achievement right across the UK and Irish meat industry.”
Launched in 2018 to great acclaim, the annual Women In Meat Industry Awards highlights outstanding female talent and role models across a range of categories, culminating in the overall Meat Businesswoman of the Year being announced at the prestigious ceremony.
This year’s 2026 host Sally Gunnell started athletics life as a pentathlete and long jumper with the Essex Ladies’ Club. Her explosive power made her a decent junior sprinter, and she soon began to concentrate on the 100m hurdles. Gold at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games of 1986 seemed to confirm Gunnell’s prowess at sprint hurdling, but by 1987 she was being encouraged to look at longer distances.
In 1989, she took Gold at the European Cup 400m flat race in Gateshead; her speed endurance and mental toughness were becoming apparent. By 1990, she was hurdling again – with great success. She won the 1990 Commonwealth Games 400m hurdles title in Auckland; Gunnell had found her perfect event and grew rapidly in stature.
Tokyo’s 1991 World Championships could so easily have brought her the Gold medal; in the lead at the penultimate hurdle, she glanced across at one of her rivals. That uncharacteristic split second of mental diversion left her with the Silver and a burning sense of disappointment.
Gunnell returned to the track’s biggest stage in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics. Months of hard graft paid off, and she progressed to the 400m hurdles final without incident. An indifferent start to the biggest race of her life was soon forgotten as she engaged the Gunnell afterburner to blow away her rivals in the last 150 metres. Olympic Gold and a place in history were hers.
“Sally is a perfect fit for the Women In Meat Industry Awards and aligns brilliantly with the annual event.”
Graham Yandell MBE
But Gunnell was not finished yet. She worked even harder during the off-season of 1992/3, building in a raft of changes to her nutrition, physical and technical training; nothing was left to chance. Her coach knew exactly how to get her “peaked” in time for the World Championships in Stuttgart and all was going perfectly to plan with a week left. But on arrival in Germany, Gunnell developed a heavy cold.
She hid this from her rivals and managed to battle through qualifying and make the final. Such was her state of illness, the night before the race that she called a press conference to announce her withdrawal. At the last minute, she had a change of heart and pulled the conference. This proved to be an excellent decision; although feeling well below par, Sally stormed to the Gold, setting a new World Record in the process.
No other woman has held Commonwealth, European, World and Olympic track titles concurrently and although her world record has since been broken, she is recognised as an icon of British sport.
Post athletics career
Sally became part of the BBC Sport team and was a regular fixture on athletics programmes throughout the Noughties, until 2006, interviewing athletes on the finish line and bringing the trackside atmosphere into millions of living rooms across the UK. She has appeared in numerous TV shows including A Question of Sport and Total Wipeout. She is a regular on TV breakfast news sofas and conducts hundreds of radio interviews each year.
Today, Sally is a sought-after speaker, and her main mission is to promote health and wellbeing for everybody in the UK. She is a passionate supporter of initiatives that encourage families to be more active.
Sally, a working mother of three boys, uses her phenomenal athletics career to inspire and empower others. The synergy between sport and business has allowed Sally to get people to believe in their own ability and become the very best that they can be.
Publisher of Meat Management magazine Graham Yandell MBE added: “Sally is a perfect fit for the Women In Meat Industry Awards and aligns brilliantly with the annual event and the profile we bring to fantastic women who are high achievers in our industry. I know we can look forward to another fantastic evening on 20th November.”
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Visit the official website: www.womeninmeatawards.com.
Thank you to the 2026 WIMIA partners:
