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# Katie-George Dunlevy, Ireland’s most decorated Paralympic athlete of all time, hopes to inspire visually impaired children and the LGBTQ+ community
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/katie-george-dunlevy-irelands-most-decorated-paralympic-athlete-of-all-time-hopes-to-inspire-visually-impaired-children-and-the-lgbtq-community/
- Published: 2024-09-14T11:51:00.000Z
- Updated: 2024-09-14T11:51:00.000Z
- Description: The most decorated Irish Paralympic athlete of all time, Katie-George Dunlevy, discovered she had retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder of the eyes that causes loss of vision, when she was not yet 12 years old. Now the English-born, out gay athlete, who won a gold and two silver medals at this ye
- Author: Graham Robson
- Tags: Ireland, LGBT, LGBTQ, Paralympics

The most decorated Irish Paralympic athlete of all time, **Katie-George Dunlevy**, discovered she had retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder of the eyes that causes loss of vision, when she was not yet 12 years old.

Now the English-born, out gay athlete, who won a gold and two silver medals at this year’s **Paralympics** in Paris, hopes to inspire visually impaired children and the LGBTQ+ community.

On losing her sight at such a young age, Dunlevy said: “I didn’t understand because I was used to seeing what I could see and didn’t know what everyone else could see.”

For Dunlevy, it was running and rowing first, and at 17 Britain selected her for the **Blind Sports European Championships**, where she won bronze in 400m. At university in Southampton she became more serious about rowing and received a call from a British rowing coach to try out.

However, paracycling coach **Brian Nugent** threw a lifeline. With her core strength and cardio, he asked if she wanted to try out cycling. A couple of months later Dunlevy arrived in Ireland. She tried out and was selected for the World Championships at the end of the year, winning a silver medal in the road race.

### “One of the reasons to carry on is to inspire visually impaired children and the LGBTQ+ community, just to give anyone hope to be themselves.”

“I think you find at a lot of awards the Olympic medal would seem higher than a Paralympic medal, which shouldn’t be the case. So, a silver Olympic medal would be seen as something higher than a gold Paralympic medal. Right. You just go, eh, what do you need to do as a Paralympic athlete to been seen? So, there are barriers.”

“But one of the reasons to carry on is to inspire visually impaired children and the LGBTQ+ community, just to give anyone hope to be themselves.

“I want to go to schools to show my medals to the children and let them hold my medals because I didn’t have that as a kid,” she says.

“If I can inspire anyone just not to give up, that’s my job done. It will have been worth it.

“Coming out, I denied it. I was very confused.”