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Sophie Margaret Christiansen, OBE (born 14 November 1987) is a British equestrian who has competed in three successive Paralympic Games, winning several medals.
She first competed at the Paralympics aged 16 and was the youngest athlete for Great Britain at the 2004 Summer Paralympics.
She contested both the freestyle and championship dressage grade I, the classification grade for severely disabled athletes. In the freestyle event Christiansen finished fourth with the gold medal being won by British teammate Lee Pearson.
The championship grade I dressage saw Christiansen win her first Paralympic medal. Competing with h
Sophie Margaret Christiansen, OBE (born 14 November 1987) is a British equestrian who has competed in three successive Paralympic Games, winning several medals.
She first competed at the Paralympics aged 16 and was the youngest athlete for Great Britain at the 2004 Summer Paralympics.
She contested both the freestyle and championship dressage grade I, the classification grade for severely disabled athletes. In the freestyle event Christiansen finished fourth with the gold medal being won by British teammate Lee Pearson.
The championship grade I dressage saw Christiansen win her first Paralympic medal. Competing with her horse Hotstuff, she took bronze with gold again being won by Pearson.
She was named BBC London Disabled Athlete of the Year for 2004.
Following her success in Athens Christiansen was selected to be part of the British team at the 2005 European Championships held in Hungary where she won three gold medals.
At the World Championships in 2007 she won a gold medal in the freestyle dressage and a bronze medal in the individual dressage event.
In 2008 she represented Great Britain at the Summer Paralympics. The equestrian events were not held in the host city Beijing but instead took place at the Olympic Equestrian Centre in Hong Kong. Competing in her second Games she again contested the freestyle and championship dressage events but was also part of the British quartet in the team dressage.
On her horse Lambrusco she won an individual gold medal in the freestyle and silver in the championship dressage. In the team open Christiansen, with teammates Lee Pearson, Anne Dunham and Simon Laurens won her second Paralympic gold medal. This meant that Great Britain has won a gold medal in this event at four consecutive Games.
Paralympics 2012 saw her claim gold once again in the Equestrian Individual Freestyle Test Grade la. Sophie won gold with a score of 84.75 on her horse Janeiro 6, finishing 5.75 points ahead of her closest rival.
She is Britain's first triple gold medallist at the Paralympic games.
Christiansen was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours for services to disabled sport.
She has a MSci degree (undergraduate honours) in mathematics from the University of London's Royal Holloway College.
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to equestrianism.
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