
Robert Champion MBE
MBE and an English former jump jockey who won the 1981 Grand National.
Speaker's biography
Robert Champion MBE is an English former jump jockey who won the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti. At the height of his career as a jockey, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in July 1979. He was treated with an orchidectomy and with the chemotherapeutic drugs bleomycin, vinblastine and cisplatin, and also had an exploratory operation to identify cancer in his lymph nodes.
His victory on Aldaniti was viewed by many as a great triumph, following his previous adversity. Their victory earned them that year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award and was chosen as one of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments by Channel 4 viewers in 2002.
Champion was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 1983 for his services to horse-racing.