Courtesy: Hector Pardoe
Two-time British Olympian and celebrated open water swimmer, Hector Pardoe, is the winner of the 2025 BBC Green Sport Award for Athlete of the Year.
This prestigious 2025 awards ceremony took place at the BBC’s Broadcasting House on Monday, 6th October, with the Athlete of the Year award being presented to the athlete most committed to making sport contribute to a better world.
Pardoe beat off stiff competition from other nominees, including Fran Kirby (Brighton and England Footballer), who had teamed up with the World Wide Fund for Nature earlier this year, and Hannah Mills (two-time Olympic sailing gold medallist), who has been a leading voice on sustainability throughout her career. Previous winners have included Imogen Grant, an Olympic rowing gold medallist and international cricketer Pat Cummins.
This award comes on the back of Pardoe having completed a World first in August – taking part in the Three Lakes Challenge and becoming the first person in history to swim Britain’s three largest lakes, back to back in under 24 hours – swimming over 34.5 miles in a combined swim time of just 12 hours 15 minutes. He did so, whilst making a self-funded YouTube documentary “King of the Lakes”, watched by over half a million people, detailing this feat and further focusing awareness of water pollution and raising funds for Surfers Against Sewage. A week later, he was back in the water, publicizing the need to clean up our rivers, swimming the length of the Thames as part of a home nations relay challenge.
Having won this award, Pardo commented, “I’m really overwhelmed to have been nominated, let alone to have won this 2025 BBC Green Sport Award for Athlete of the Year. It’s been a great year for promoting the environment and the issues related to pollution through a number of iconic swims. At times, I knew that I had to push through my pain, cold, and hunger to further highlight this issue. For me, it’s all about National pride, and it’s great that I seem to have inspired a lot of people with my self-funded YouTube ‘King of the Lakes’ documentary, which has already been viewed by more than 500,000 people within the first two weeks of release. I’d like to thank everyone who has supported me throughout all of my endeavors and to all who voted for me to attain this award. We need to keep fighting for less polluted waters”.
Congrats to Hector, such a deserving athlete for such recognition 🙌.