Hope Gordon: From Hospital Bed to Commonwealth Games
- Tal Khaled
- Jul 31
- 4 min read
Hope Gordon is the first athlete in history to compete at a Summer Paralympics, Winter Paralympics and Commonwealth Games across three different sports. She trains at Fit2Go in Nottingham with our co-founder Brodie Howatson, using the same VALD performance technology available to all our patients.
On Thursday evening, inside the SEC Armadillo in Glasgow, Hope Gordon stepped onto the para powerlifting platform for Team Scotland and lifted 90kg in front of a roaring home crowd. She finished 9th in the women's heavyweight category at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games.
9th might not sound like a headline. Until you understand who Hope Gordon is and how she got there.
Three sports. Three Games. One athlete.
Hope is the first athlete in history to compete at a Summer Paralympics, a Winter Paralympics and a Commonwealth Games across three completely different sports. Para Nordic skiing in Beijing 2022. Paracanoe in Paris 2024, where she won silver. And now para powerlifting in Glasgow 2026 - a sport she only took up thirteen months ago.
She didn't switch sports because the first ones didn't work out. She won World Championship gold in paracanoe. She was Britain's first ever female para Nordic skier. She pivoted to powerlifting for one reason: the Commonwealth Games were coming to Glasgow, and she wanted to represent Scotland on home soil.
Hope Gordon's Commonwealth Games: A journey that started in a hospital bed
Hope grew up on a small croft in Rogart in the Scottish Highlands - active, outdoors, surrounded by horses and sheep. At 12, during her first year of secondary school, her leg suddenly stopped working. What followed was years of debilitating pain and failed treatments before she was finally diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome - a condition with no cure.
The pain was so severe that even the weight of a duvet on her leg was unbearable. At 14, Hope made the decision to have her leg amputated. It went against NHS guidelines and medical advice - she was told the pain could spread to other limbs, so she crowdfunded £10,000 to have the procedure done privately.
She describes it as the best decision she ever made.
The closing ceremony of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games falls exactly ten years after that operation. The venue where she competed - the SEC Armadillo - is the same building she used to stare at from her hospital bed window at Yorkhill Children's Hospital across the river.
Training at Fit2Go
Hope lives and trains in Nottingham, and our co-founder Brodie Howatson has been working closely with her as part of her preparation for the Commonwealth Games. The work has focused on optimising her performance across multiple sporting demands - no simple task when your athlete is simultaneously training for paracanoe World Championships and learning a brand new discipline in para powerlifting.
Hope's sessions at Fit2Go have drawn on the same VALD performance suite that every patient in the clinic has access to. ForceDecks to measure force output and asymmetries through the lower limbs. HumanTrak to assess trunk rotation, range of motion and movement quality in real time. And dynamometry testing to track grip and upper body strength - critical for the bench press demands of para powerlifting.
This is technology that would normally sit behind the doors of a Premier League training ground or an Olympic performance centre. At Fit2Go, it's the standard of care for every patient who walks through the door - whether you're a Commonwealth Games athlete or someone recovering from knee surgery.
What 9th place really means
Para powerlifting isn't Hope's main sport. She took it up barely a year ago. She competed at the World Championships after just four months of training. Four weeks from now, she'll be at the Paracanoe World Championships - the discipline where she already holds a World title and a Paralympic silver medal.
To step onto a Commonwealth Games stage in a sport that isn't your primary discipline, on home soil, in front of a crowd that included family who watched her grow up through years of pain - and to lift 90kg cleanly across three attempts - is an achievement that transcends any placing on a leaderboard.
More than an athlete
Hope uses her platform to promote understanding of disability, particularly among young people. Her message extends well beyond sporting achievement. She talks openly about her journey - the pain, the struggle, the decision to amputate, the years of rebuilding - because she strongly believes representation matters.
We're proud to play a small part in Hope's story. Working with athletes of this calibre sharpens the tools and the clinical expertise that we bring to every patient. The same ForceDecks platform that measured Hope's force output before Glasgow is the same one available to you in our clinic in West Bridgford or East Leake.
That's always been the point. The best technology and the best clinical thinking shouldn't be reserved for the elite. It should be available to everyone.
Congratulations, Hope. We'll be watching the Paracanoe Worlds.
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