A 23-year-old rugby player from Coulsdon is in tomorrow night’s final of Gladiators.
Coulsdon champion: Emily Bell is in tomorrow’s Gladiators final
Emily Bell says that her background in contact sport – as well as playing for rugby league side London Broncos, she took up judo when at Cambridge University – has helped her cope with the physical strength and speed tests posed by the professional Gladiators as she has batled her way into the final.
That, and the support of her mum and her community in Croydon.
Gladiators is the long-running show where members of the public are pitted against each other over a series of races and challenges, with powerhouse professional guards, the Gladiators, standing in their way, often armed with pugil sticks…
Bell, who works as a marketing intern at Morgan Stanley, told the BBC ahead of the final, “It’s just been so fun to rep the flag of south London, of Croydon.”
A big party is planned for tomorrow night, to watch the action as it goes out on the prime-time show hosted by Bradley Walsh and his son Barney Walsh.
“I just love the community,” Bell says of Croydon. “Community is important, sometimes it does lack, especially in big cities, so it’s been really nice now to bring community together.
“My mum will tell a random in the supermarket, and then they’re invested, and they’ll tell someone else, and they’ll tell someone else and that little chain of supporters and community grows… Oh, I just love it.
Family act: Bradley and Barney Walsh front the primetime BBC television show
“I’m the same goofy, loud, laughing person I am in real life on Gladiators. What really strikes me is the people who have young kids, young daughters, who say, ‘Oh, you’re such an inspiration to them, they really look up to you’.
“And that is very mind-blowing for me, because in my eyes I’m a young kid who has sporting people I look up to, and I’m like, ‘That’s so cool’.
“I’ve just loved it,” Bell said in the BBC interview. “I just love having a joyous occasion when things can be bleak.
“It’s nice to have a giggle on a Saturday night.”
Bell will have to overcome 40-year-old Naomi Church, from Birmingham, to lift the title.
“I’m a speaker of many languages but I don’t have the words or language to describe what it would mean to win Gladiators,” Bell said.
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