Pete Reed, triple Olympic gold medal-winning rower, paralysed after spinal stroke
Last Updated: 30/10/19 11:11pm
Triple Olympic rowing gold medallist Pete Reed has revealed that the spinal stroke he recently suffered has left him paralysed from below his chest.
The 38-year-old won gold at three consecutive Olympic Games - Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016.
Reed, a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy, also won gold at five World Rowing Championships before retiring in 2018, having initially begun training for the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
He is now waiting to find out what the long-term effect of the spinal stroke will be after posting an update on his condition on his Instagram account.
"There is a very small chance I will make no recovery and a very small chance I will make a full recovery," he said in a post, having used his Instagram account on October 9 to confirm he had suffered a stroke.
"Much more likely it will be somewhere in between. To what extent depends on the extent of the damage (which we can't see) and how well I rehab.
"It was in the middle of my spine so I'm currently paralysed beneath my chest.
"My arms are still strong and my brain is still as average as it ever was."
A spinal stroke is a disruption in the blood supply to the spinal cord, although Reed says doctors do not know what caused his.
