In this episode of Full of Fire, I enjoy a fascinating chat with double Olympic gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold OBE!

Lizzy is a former British skeleton racer who joined the Great Britain national squad in 2010. With consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2014 and 2018, she is the most successful British Winter Olympian ever.

Lizzy grew up in Kent and enjoyed a variety of sports at a young age, loving athletics and working hard at the heptathlon in particular. She talks about her focused, purposeful attitude even as a young child. 

A reasonably late starter to her Olympic sport at the age of 20, Lizzy first started participating in skeleton after applying for the UK Sport Talent ID Campaign, Girls4Gold, where she was spotted as having huge potential in the sport. Despite having never done it before, Lizzy fell in love with sliding, worked incredibly hard to fulfil her Olympic dream and has never looked back.

Lizzy speaks about her childhood, her journey to the Olympics, working hard, dealing with setbacks and finding your ‘why’. I greatly enjoyed our conversation and am very excited to share it with you.

This week, Vin Murria OBE joins me on Full of Fire. 

Vin is a tech entrepreneur and angel investor who has has a meteoric career. As a 3-year-old she moved over to Britain from India and grew up above a corner shop. She went on to study Computer Science and has spent her working life running, developing and selling multimillion pound tech companies.

In 2018, Vin received an OBE for services to the British digital economy, as well as for advancing women in the software sector.

Vin has some important messages to share about being your own best advocate, working hard, paying it forward and negotiating for the best deal. Whether you are keen to work in tech, have a successful career in business and break glass ceilings - or just be the best version of yourself in any area of your life - Vin’s stories and advice are essential listening.

In this episode I speak to Ciara Samuels, a recent Oxford graduate and the founder of the highly inspirational Humans of Oxford University. 

Whilst she was President of her college in Oxford, the university released their disappointing admissions statistics showing a lack of diversity and representation of students from diverse backgrounds. In fact, from 2015-2017, 42% of Oxbridge places were allocated to private-school students who made up only 7% of the entire UK’s student body.

These worrying statistics encouraged Ciara to found Humans of Oxford University to showcase the inspiring stories from students around the university who come from non-traditional backgrounds in the hope that this would encourage prospective applicants to apply. 

Ciara currently plans on undertaking a law degree in the next academic year and her long term goal is to work for charities or a larger organisation, like the UN, where she could work in human rights. 

Ciara was great to chat to and her work to people of diverse backgrounds to access top universities is inspiring. She gives advice on how to make a strong application even if you don’t have much support at home or at school, and how to push for change at institutions, even when people don’t seem to be listening! 

In this episode, we hear from Cat Davison, who has set up the education charity EduSpots in her 20s whilst working in normal full-time jobs.  Cat is interested in learning how to create systems that empower and bring people together who aspire to create change in their communities. 

Cat talks about how she went from being a shy teenager to leading EduSpots, and gives advice to girls hoping to create the future they want to see. She talks about some of the challenges and questions that have arisen in the process, and her ongoing efforts to position local leaders, their voices and their communities, at the heart of the EduSpots model.  

Cat grew up in London before studying Philosophy and later Management at Cambridge University. She left university to go straight into teaching, hoping to spread her passion for ethical philosophy and sport, before an opportunity to be involved in an education project in rural Ghana led to a shift in focus. 

Alongside teaching, Cat has since worked with a Ghanaian team to set up the EduSpots education network which aims to train, equip and connect educational 'catalysts' to enable community-led change. She studied an MA in Education and International Development at UCL and spent a year living, listening, and completing research in Ghana. In 2020, an estimated 15,000 learners of all ages have directly benefited from the 40 education 'spots', which are shared by local schools and run by a network of local volunteers who are trained in leadership, practical STEM and literacy development. 

Connected to this, EduSpots also runs online courses which enable European and African students to connect through live discussions of development theory and practice with a focus on African scholarship. Cat is currently also Director of Service and Social Impact at Sevenoaks School and Chair of the Independent School Council’s Community Action Group. 

In this episode of Full of Fire, I speak to leading sports and eating disorders dietician Renee McGregor and find out about her job, her own terrifying experience of anorexia and her work with young athletes to encourage healthy relationships with food and exercise.

Renee is a best-selling author and leading sports and eating disorder dietitian with over 15 years experience working with elite athletes, coaches and sport science teams alongside normal teenagers.

Renee has delivered nutrition support to athletes over the last two Olympic and Paralympic cycles, and regularly works with high performing and professional athletes that have developed a dysfunctional relationship with food and exercise.

She founded the #TRAINBRAVE campaign aiming to inspire more athletes to share their stories and raise awareness of the risks of eating disorders and RED-s (Relative Energy Deficiency syndrome - when people regularly exercise hard and don’t eat enough to refuel).

Renee talks about the reasons young people develop eating disorders and speaks about her own experiences with racism and low self-worth as a teenager that led to her own anorexia.

She highlights the damaging messages that are transmitted via social media by influencers and celebrities who have no education in nutrition. Renee herself aims to use social media to educate with truth and science (after studying for 3 degrees in Biochemistry, Dietetics and Sports Nutrition!), but admits to having a love/hate relationship with Instagram. 

Renee also talks about the signs you can notice in yourself and your friends of developing unhealthy relationships with food or exercise and gives advice about what to do if you have a friend you’re worried about.

This is an in-depth episode that is valuable listening for young people - and also for sports coaches, PE teachers and parents. Nutrition, sports nutrition, eating disorders and RED-s are such complex areas, but it’s really important to be aware of the issues. 

Sirin Kale is a young London-based journalist specialising in women's rights, politics, music, lifestyle, and culture. Sirin has written a range of important pieces, most recently interviewing the head of the Royal College of Nursing on why the NHS is failing people of colour - and another detailed piece in Vogue UK following 4 female NHS doctors coping with the coronavirus crisis - but can also be found writing on TikTok, the subterfuge of lockdown barbers, rainbow hair and reality TV!

Sirin speaks about how she got into journalism (with no connections!), how she can find a story in the most unlikely of places, being an introvert and who she'd most like to interview!

A must-listen for anyone wanting to work in the media, Sirin gives advice on how to get started as a journalist at any age. 

21-year-old Emily Louise just graduated from Oxford University as one of less than 1% of students there who grew up eligible for Free School Meals.

Emily got over 57,000 likes for this tweet saying she’d finished university! 

A Londoner with Irish and Mauritian parents, Emily grew up living with her mum and sister in a council flat in West London. The first in her family to go to university, having studied at a state comprehensive, she talks of her journey to and through Oxford. 

Having won the Pat Harris award for contributions to her college, Emily is very passionate about widening access to education, which is why she was particularly proud of how much attention her recent tweet received.

Emily was an absolute delight to chat to - her story is so uplifting and she has so much energy to change institutions and support others. 

Darcy Bourne is an 18-year-old athlete and member of the England U21 hockey team and GB Elite Development programme. Darcy began playing club hockey for Surbiton Hockey Club in 2012 and has just finished Year 13 at Wellington College. She is off to start at Duke University, North Carolina, on a sports scholarship. 

A photo of Darcy protesting at a Black Lives Matter protest last week went viral. The powerful shot by Misan Harriman shows Darcy holding up a homemade poster reading “Why is ending racism a debate?” and has been shared on social media by Martin Luther King III, British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, Dina Asher Smith, Lewis Hamilton, David Beckham and many others! Darcy grew up noticing the lack of black role models in hockey and hopes to be a role model for young black athletes and use her platform positively. 

Darcy speaks about her passion for the Black Lives Matter movement and her hopes for a more racially equal future in hockey. She also speaks about her journey from talented 10-year-old to training with the GB women’s squad. Darcy discusses finishing school in a pandemic, looks forward to her future at university in the USA and gives advice about looking after yourself and striving to be the best you can be. 

18-year-old Gabby Tan is an activist, Diana Award winner, TedX speaker and a powerful young voice advocating for change in the world.

When she was just 13, Gabby founded her own organisation supporting refugee and asylum seeker education, Horizon of Hope. She has dedicated the past six years to advocating for the environment and working against educational inequalities in Malaysia and the UK. Last year, Gabby received a Diana Legacy Award. The Diana Award is the most significant global accolade a young person aged 9-25 years can receive for their social action or humanitarian work – the Legacy Award is an even more prestigious award! Gabby is off to study at Stanford University. 

Whether you have always wanted to effect change, campaign or set up a charity or social enterprise, Gabby is definitely proof that you can make change, however young you are – even whilst balancing this with schoolwork, sport and friends. Gabby speaks about being a quiet child, finding your voice, learning to speak publicly, focusing on the small changes you can make and finding like-minded people and mentors to work with. 

Gabby is one of the most inspiring students I've ever had the privilege of teaching. If you’re an aspiring activist or even if you’re just a normal person thinking about how to get the best out of yourself in any area of your life, I ask her the questions that you want to know the answers to…

21-year-old hockey player Tess Howard climbed her way from the England U16 team to the GB women’s hockey team in just 3 years. Now with 34 caps and 7 GB goals to her name, she is aiming for the Tokyo Olympics. Balancing a career in international sport with her studies at Durham University, Tess is proof that working hard for your goals is the key to success. 

Tess speaks about why she wants to inspire the future and how being a girl is a superpower! She explains how being rejected from Cambridge University was an important moment in making her character. She talks about how young girls can find role models and mentors, and how to succeed by treating exams like sports matches! 

Whether you’re an aspiring athlete wanting to learn about how to improve at your own sport or you’re just a normal person thinking about how to get the best out of yourself in any area of your life, I ask her the questions that you want to know the answers to…