Five stories from Britain’s best sporting underdogs

When faced with a Goliath, British sports fans have always favored an underdog.

Underdogs are athletes who overcome obstacles and achieve things that aren’t typically their goals.

The BBC tells the story of five of Britain’s best and how they triumphed in the face of great odds in a new BBC Sounds podcast series, Sport’s Greatest Underdogs.

Nicolas Hamilton became the first British Touring Cars series driver with a disability in 2015.

However, he left the sport and developed a gambling addiction a year later.

Hamilton, the brother of Lewis, who won seven races for Formula One, said, “I didn’t feel valuable.”

I didn’t receive sponsorship or racing, either. My brother and my father are both multi-millionaires, and they are on an upward trend.

I just found out I was gambling because I felt very lost and alone.

Hamilton, who has cerebral palsy, returned to his British Touring Cars in 2019 and is currently a champion in the championship race for 2025.

Beth Shriever, a BMX competitor, won the first gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as a result.

On the way to Tokyo, the Essex cyclist had to deal with losing money.

Shriever left the national set-up to travel solo after UK Sport announced they would only fund male riders based on results in 2017.

She raised £50,000 from her supporters to increase her chances of being chosen for the Olympics.

Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards had only been ski jumping for 20 months when he qualified for the Calgary Winter Olympics of 1988, becoming Britain’s first-ever competitor in the event.

He began it because skiing in Alpine was too expensive, and he traveled with his will and a burning desire to travel. He rented equipment, ate from bins, and slept in his car to fulfill his dream.

Edwards rose to the top of the standings in both the 70- and 90-meter events, becoming a global and sporting icon.

Edmonton was my gold medal because I had so much fun going to Calgary, according to Edwards.

I’m extremely proud of what I’ve accomplished. I pushed boundaries, pushed boundaries, and did everything that was criticized as impossible to do.

Nicola Adams, a double Olympic gold medalist, grew up in a male-dominated boxing environment but never gave up on pursuing an Olympic dream.

But when the sport first appeared at the 2012 Olympics, she took her chance and won gold, followed by another gold at the Rio Olympics, four years later.

Many of us were still working and trying to support being athletes, which was really challenging, Adams said. “The funding wasn’t there.

We would need to wash our own competition gear for the other person to wear the next day when we went away and wouldn’t even have it.

“It was completely different from what you saw when the guys left.” They would be in complete control.

They would arrange for someone to visit a week prior and set up the hotel. All of the rooms would be located on the same floor. We couldn’t even get our own separate competition equipment until they made sure all the refrigerators were stacked.

Leicester City won the Premier League title for the first time in their 132-year history as the 5, 000-1 outsiders, outnumbering the rest of the footballing world.

After being promoted from the Championship and adjusting to life in the top flight a year earlier, they were at the bottom of the table.

However, they rallied around the decline under Nigel Pearson as manager, and the club’s winning streak continued into the new year’s upcoming season as Claudio Ranieri was appointed.

Despite having one of the league’s lowest playing budgets, they won 23 of their 38 games to pull off what is still considered one of the greatest unexpected sporting stories ever.