Ice-skating queen defying medical experts
Jenny Lee is emulating her heroes Torvill and Dean after doctors feared she would never be able to walk or talk, writes Fiona Tomas
In her mother’s words, figure skater Jenny Lee “can do things other people can’t” on the ice. You might not think this is unusual, a supportive mum backing her daughter to the hilt, but given Lee could barely stand on one foot when she first took up the sport aged 14 and three years after losing her hearing, she has defied expectations.
Born with a brain abnormality which caused a weakness down one side of her body, Lee spent her early years lying down.
Neurologists were convinced she would never be able to walk or talk, or even feed herself. But in a measure of her determination to use physical activity to broaden her horizons, she defied the experts by taking steps with a walking frame at just three years old.
“I just put my big girl pants on and got on with it,” Lee, now 24, tells Telegraph Women’s Sport, lip-reading my questions over Zoom beside her mum Helena. “I tried karate, tennis, ballet, football. In the end, I settled on horse riding and ice skating. Sadly, they’re two of the most expensive sports.”
Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Lee was competing against mainstream adult skaters at Bradford Ice Arena. But with many of the country’s ice rinks remaining accessible only to elite skaters because of the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, she has been busying herself with online activities provided by Inclusive Skating, the 5,000-strong community which runs competitions and events for people with a range of learning impairments or other intellectual disabilities and additional needs all over the world.
That included winning gold in the pairs event with her long-time skating partner, Callum Mills, at last month’s Virtual Inclusive Skating British International Championships, which saw skaters submit videos of routines in an online competition.
It was her latest accolade to add to an impressive haul of first and second-place podium finishes at past championships organised by Inclusive Skating, which has supported her from day one.
“The first time I took Jenny skating, everyone laughed at us,” says Helena, pausing. Her face widens into a proud smile as she turns to her daughter: “To be fair, you did spend most of the first few weeks sat on the ice, trying to get up.”
Lee bursts into a fit of giggles at the recollection. Before long, she is avidly recounting the time she met Torvill and Dean, Britain’s national skating treasures.
It was 2017 and Lee was competing for Great Britain at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Graz, Austria, where she finished fourth.
“Did you have a conversation with them?” I ask Lee, who momentarily flushes with excitement at retelling the scenario to someone new. Helena cuts in. “Oh, you couldn’t shut her up! I had to pull her away.”
In a sport that is continually pushing boundaries on the ice, Lee is also part of a four-person synchronised skating team with two girls who have impaired vision and her older sister, Hannah, who has a cardiac problem that increases her heart rate.
“One of the girls can only see half out of each eye, the other girl has no peripheral vision, so they can’t tell where people are coming from on the ice until they’re right in front of her face,” explains Lee.
During her teenage years, gliding around the rink, using the vibrations on the ice to feel the music and rhythm, provided an escape from the bullying she endured at her state comprehensive school, where she was told that she would never belong in sport because of her learning disability.
“It happened so many times,” recalls Lee. “But I said to myself, ‘You know what? I’m going to try figure skating. I’m going to prove them wrong’. I wasn’t prepared to listen to anybody who said I couldn’t do something.”
Competing at the 2017 Special Olympics opened new doors for Lee. She carried the flag at the closing ceremony, a fitting way for her to cap off a tournament that she had fundraised £2,500 to compete at.
“Jenny’s Inclusive Skating journey has made her understand that competing at these big events isn’t just going to be handed to her on a plate,” says Helena.
“She’s had to approach people and ask them if they wanted to buy tombola tickets as part of her sponsorship, building up communication skills which have really boosted her confidence and made her more independent.”
Lee now holds down two part-time jobs at a farm shop near the family’s home and in her local branch of Mcdonald’s, where she is on furlough because of the pandemic.
Next year, she will achieve the rare feat of competing for a second time at the Special Olympics, to be held in Kazan, Russia, this time in the pairs competition with Callum.
Helena likens the duo to a
“miniature Torvill and Dean”, but there is something grandesque about Lee’s journey in that she is fast becoming a skating icon for future generations of young people with intellectual disabilities.
“A few years ago, we had a few new people join our Inclusive Skating community,” says Lee. “They came over and asked me if I was Jennifer Lee, they were asking all sorts of questions and even wanted my autograph.”
Just as Lee has had to overcome many obstacles throughout her life, she now could not envisage one without skating.
“It’s part of who I am,” she smiles. “Without it, I wouldn’t be a whole person, a part of me would be missing.”