Name: Michael John Hanney

Place of Birth: Weston-super-Mare

Disability: Spina Bifida

Profession:    
            Fitness Instructor in Bristol, UK
            Personal Trainer
            Sports Massage Therapist
            Wheelchair skills Trainer

My interest in sport began when I was about 9, I spent most of the year going in and out of hospital for one operation or another and as a result had a home tutor. Lucky for me home schooling was confined to the mornings and as it happens the Summer Olympics, ‘Munich 72’ was on the television in the afternoons, and I became hooked.

The following year I went to boarding school in Hampshire at Lord Mayor Treloar College. The school had a history or excellence in sport and for the first time I was able to join in on equal terms. In 1974 I attending my first Junior Games at Stoke Mandeville representing the school and I came back with a medal for swimming.

After leaving school in 1979 and returning home to Weston-super-Mare I was looking to continue to participate in a sport locally. By chance one of the first people I worked with was a fencing coach, and after a bet in a pub one lunchtime I began to learn.  That bet was in 1980 and the rest as they say is history, which you can learn more about on the Paralympic page of this website. I also some how mixed this will a full time career as a typesetter.

So when I was made redundant in 2006 it seemed like the obvious answer to make my love of sport into my profession. I got myself onto the Premier Training course in the July of 2006 and gained my Diploma.

Through sport I have seen my own life enriched and my hope is that by working with as many different people as possible I can give something of that back.