Hollie Arnold

Hollie Arnold might have javelin in her blood, but despite her family heritage in the sport, when she first picked one up, she thought it was just a stick.

The 30-year-old recently became a six-time world champion in the F46 javelin, in addition to the Paralympic gold medal she won in Rio eight years ago.

She is now preparing for her fifth Paralympic Games, having made her debut as a 14-year-old in Beijing back in 2008.

And while both her mum Jill and aunt Lesley were javelin champions in their own right, it was a chance opportunity that allowed her to discover the discipline.

She recalled: “I’ve always been a sporty girl, since day dot. I was always doing everything and me and my brother went to a sporting event at Cleethorpes Athletics Club.

“We tried loads of different things; I loved all different sports. I remember my brother Ash picked up a javelin and threw it.

“I wanted to beat him because I was a little sister and wanted to be annoying. I picked this stick up because I didn’t know it was a javelin. I threw it and everyone thought wow, ‘have you ever thrown a javelin before?’. I replied ‘No, but I like it’.”

Arnold was just 11 at the time, but within three years, she was making her debut at the Paralympics in Beijing in front of a packed-out stadium in the iconic ‘Bird’s Nest’.

Not only was it the first time that she was competing on the biggest stage of all, but it was also her first real interaction with the event of any kind.

She had qualified by achieving the required distance in an event in the Netherlands before taking her place in Beijing.

She said: “I remember getting the call and thinking it was mad. I was 13 and selected for my first-ever Paralympics. I’d barely competed in disability sport.

“I had turned 14 and was competing at my first Paralympics in front of 90,000 people. It was unreal. I was this small little girl, looking for my parents thinking where are they in this packed stadium? I hadn’t seen them for a month, we had the holding camp before, so I’d not seen them in ages.

“I’d hardly spoken to them, and I remember seeing them in head-to-toe GB, I thought ‘Oh my god!’. It was so amazing to have their support out there.

“It was that moment when I finished competing that I said to myself I want to be a Paralympian, I want this to be my job and I want to go and win that gold medal, however long it takes.

“I had found a career path. I was never particularly academic in school, but I loved sport, how it made me feel. The javelin made me feel very powerful. At 14 I was very self-conscious of my body, my arm, and my disability. Being in sport made me feel invincible.”

Having made it to Beijing as the youngest member of the GB team, Arnold and her family then made the decision to move to Wales to progress.

It was a big decision, but testament to the support she has received from her family to reach this point.

She said: “I had a conversation with my dad, and he asked if I wanted to go to the next Paralympics and if I wanted to win a medal. I said yes, so we had to move. My brother stayed at home but my mum, my dad and I all moved. We moved to Wales, we moved to a different country, my mum had to give up her job, we had to be far away from family which was extremely hard. I was 15 when we moved.”

A home Games in London was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, with Arnold setting a new personal best on her way to fifth spot. That was an impressive performance at just 18, but she wanted more.

“In London I came fifth with a lifetime best but for me it wasn’t good enough,” she added.

“I’d put an immense amount of pressure on myself. I was probably never going to win a medal. I threw a PB which was way off the medals, but I felt like a failure and then there were other people who didn’t believe I was going to be a medallist. I was kept on National Lottery funding, people fought for my place and to be honest, I wanted to quit. In my mind I didn’t think I was good enough. I’d spent four years trying to get to where I wanted to be. I was 18, which is very young, but I felt I needed to do better.

“The National Lottery have supported this since the start. I was 14 years old; I went on funding when I was really young, that helped me as a young adult, I was able to pay for petrol and equipment. Now, this is my full-time job. It’s pretty cool!”

National Lottery players have transformed Athletics in the UK, with more than £300 million invested since National Lottery funding began – something Arnold would have hugely benefited from during her sporting career.

Arnold’s breakthrough came in 2013, when she won a first world title in Lyon, before retaining her title two years later.

By Rio, she had found her footing at the highest level, and she broke the world record on her way to Paralympic gold.

After constant progress, Arnold suffered a real setback with Tokyo 2020, surrendering her crown the delayed Games as she took bronze.

She said: “For me personally as an athlete, I was destroyed by Covid. Not having the Paralympics that year when it was cancelled, sent me into a really bad place. I found that I had lost myself and it took a little while to get back. Not having any crowd, any family members and limited team staff, it was awful. The worst one I’ve been to.”

Since then, she has made history appearing on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, the first disabled contestant on the show.

That helped her rediscover her spark and love for the sport, followed by two more world titles in 2023 and earlier this summer.

She explained: “I was out of my comfort zone, ridiculously so. I put myself out there, which is hard to do but I hope I brought that determination. The people in there made me feel normal again. It was when I had lost myself a bit, so coming out of there, I found out I was a lot more resilient than I think and stronger than I thought.

“Three years on from Tokyo, I can look back and think it was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me. It made me more resilient; it made me stronger. Every time I have a down day and am really struggling, it gave me that fire in my belly that I never want to feel that again.

“The spark has taken three years to come back. It’s been a slow burn but having such an incredible support team with my family and friends has helped. I’ve had honest conversations and realised that it is ok to feel like this or like that. I’d lost my way a little bit.”

Arnold lost her way but is now well and truly back on the right path. Paris is the next destination.

Discover more grassrots to glory stories of athletes like Hollie Arnold by following #TNLAthletes.