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Kayleigh Haggo
Scottish boccia player and para athlete From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Kayleigh Haggo (born 1 February 1999) is a Scottish boccia player, frame runner, and para swimmer. She represented Great Britain at the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris in boccia in the women's individual and mixed team events.[1][2]
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Early life and education
Haggo was born in Irvine and grew up in Ayr. Although she attended a mainstream school growing up, Haggo was not involved in school sports, as school staff were unsure how to accommodate her cerebral palsy.[3]
She attended Ayrshire College, where she studied Coaching and Developing Sport.[3]
Athletic career
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As of 2024, Haggo works as a Disability Inclusion Trainer for Scottish Disability Sport, and runs trainings for PE teachers on how to accommodate disabled students.[3] She previously worked in South Ayrshire, where she was an Active Schools coordinator beginning in 2021.[4][5] She also runs Inspire, an organization which serves disabled children and young adults involved with sport.[6]
Para athletics
Haggo began frame running at age 12, and would travel to Glasgow weekly to train. By age 13, she was competing internationally in the sport.[3] At the 2012 European Para Youth Games in Brno, Czech Republic, Haggo won three gold medals.[7] She also attended the 2012 Summer Olympics in London as a spectator, which sparked her goal of competing at the Paralympics.[8]
After several years as a para swimmer, Haggo returned to frame running in 2018, when the sport was taken up by World Para Athletics.[3][7] She represented Great Britain at the 2018 European Para Athletics Championships.[9] In 2019, she won the inaugural women's 100m RR3 event at the World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai with a time of 18:32.[10][7] In 2021, she won a gold medal in frame running at the Para-athletics European Championships in Poland.[2]
Haggo hoped to attend the Paralympics as a frame runner, but the event was not included in the 2024 Summer Paralympics lineup.[3] As of 2024, she remains the world record holder for frame running in the 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500 and 5000 metre events.[2][8]
Para swimming
Haggo took up para swimming for four years between 2014 and 2018, in part because the discipline was not included in World Para Athletics' program.[3][7][9]
Boccia
Haggo began playing boccia in February 2022,[2] driven by the desire to compete at the Paralympics after frame running was announced to not be included in the event's 2024 lineup.[3][11] She competed in the Scottish Championship a few months later.[4] She first competed internationally in Poznan in August 2022.[12][5]
She became a full-time player in 2023 as part of the United Kingdom's World Class Programme, which provides funding to athletes, allowing them to train full-time.[3] That year she competed in the Montreal World Cup, where she won bronze in the BC1/2 team event.[12]
In 2024, Haggo won gold medals in the women's individual event and the BC1/2 Team event at the Lahti Challenger in Finland.[2] She was named to Great Britain's Paralympic boccia team in June 2024.[4][12] At the Paralympics, she reached the quarterfinals in the women's BC2 individual event and the mixed team BC1-2 event.[13]
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Honours
In 2017, YMCA Scotland named her on their list of 30 most inspiring women under 30.[12] In 2020, Haggo was nominated for Sports Personality of the Year at the South Ayrshire Sports Awards.[7] She received the Young Scot Health & Wellbeing Award in 2021.[6] In 2022 she was inducted into Ayrshire College's College Hall of Fame.[14]
In September 2024, Haggo was one of the hundred recipients of an Eric Liddell Pin Badge.[15]
Personal life
Haggo has quadriplegic cerebral palsy with dystonia.[5] In 2015, changed Department for Work and Pensions disability benefit rules meant Haggo might lose her motability vehicle. Around 2,900 people signed a Change.org petition in support of Haggo.[16]
She lived in Maybole with her mother as of 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, town residents raised money to buy Haggo equipment so she could train at her home.[7]
Haggo plans to marry her fiancé, Kevin, in late 2024.[2]
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References
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