Ashia Hansen MBE

Ashia switched from long jump to triple jump in 1992 and has never looked back. She is without doubt Britain's greatest ever-female jumper having already set twenty British records.

Ashia switched from long jump to triple jump in 1992 and has never looked back. She is without doubt Britain's greatest ever-female jumper having already set twenty British records.

SPORT BIO

Ashia’s first international achievement of note was victory in the European Cup in Lille in 1995. At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 she narrowly missed out on a medal, and was placed fourth. In 1997 Ashia won her first major medal, silver at the World Indoor Championships in Paris. Ashia’s progress during 1997 elevated her into the World’s elite and she was vying with Sarka Kasparkova for the World number 1 spot.

She aggravated a back injury during the 1997 World Championship, which prevented her from gaining a medal. However, she recovered to win the annual IAAF Grand Prix final with a jump of 15.15m, the fifth best of all time.

Her 1998 season started with her retaining her British Indoor Title. However, she saved her best performance to date, by jumping a World Indoor Record at the European Championships with a jump of 15.16meters. A foot injury prevented Ashia from competing for most of the Outdoor season, but she rehabilitated sufficiently to win her second major title of the year at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpar in September.

Ashia started the 1999 Indoor Season where her 1998 season finished, a fine victory at the BUPA Indoor Games against her arch rivals gave her the confidence to dominate the World Indoor Championships in March (Japan) where, with a jump of 15.02m, she claimed her first World Indoor title.

For Ashia Hansen, 2002 represented a stunning comeback. The 31 year old had almost quit the sport previously because of an agonising achilles tendon injury. But she refused to admit defeat and was rewarded with two of world athletics' most prestigious titles.

Hansen retained the Commonwealth Games title she had first claimed in 1998 and then in the same summer she took European victory in Munich on the penultimate clearance of an enthralling competition. Success kept coming with her second world indoor title in 2003 but the following year she ruptured a tendon in her knee.

In 2006 she returned to top class competition after an absence of two years.