Nick and Alison in the top 100

Professor Nick Webborn, Professor of Sport and Exercise Medicine, and artist Alison Lapper MBE, University of Brighton graduate, were selected by Shaw Trust, the UK's largest third sector provider of employment services for disabled and disadvantaged people.

Shaw is the main sponsor of the list and has worked with an independent judging panel, chaired by Paralympian Ade Adepitan MBE, to select the list. They team up with Powerful Media to create the list.

Professor Nick Webborn

Professor Webborn, one of the UK’s leading sports medicine specialists with over 25 years’ experience in the area, is Medical Director of The Sussex Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine and head of Sports Medicine at The Centre for Sport and Exercise Science and Medicine (SESAME) at the University of Brighton. He suffered a spinal cord injury in 1981 while a junior RAF doctor, and after an initial complete paralysis he made a partial recovery.

Nick, based at the Sportswise centre at the university’s Eastbourne campus, played wheelchair tennis for Great Britain in 2005 and continues to remain active. He works with a variety of sports at elite level, including tennis and football, but particularly with Paralympians.

Nick has attended eight Paralympic Games either as GB Team Physician or as a member of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Medical Commission and the IPC Anti-Doping & Sport Subcommittees. In 2003 he became involved with the bid phase of the London 2012 Games and worked for LOCOG on the medical advisory group and at the Olympic Games as a sports physician.

Nick was the Chief Medical Officer for the British Paralympic team at London 2012. His Masters degree dissertation won the 1997 IOC World Congress on Sport Sciences award for best presentation in the biological sciences section.

Alison Lapper shot to international fame when she became the subject of the sculpture Alison Lapper Pregnant by Marc Quinn, which was displayed on the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square between September 2005 and late 2007.

Alison’s public profile increased even more in 2012 when a replica of the sculpture featured in the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony. Alison was born without arms and with shortened legs, a condition known as phocomelia.

After graduating with a first-class honours degree in Fine Art from the University of Brighton in 1994, she set out to question physical normality and beauty using photography, digital imaging and painting. Alison paints expertly with her mouth, and she is a member of the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World. In 2003, she was awarded an MBE for services to art. She features, with her son Parys, in the BBC TV series Child of Our Time.

In July 2014 Alison was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Brighton, an event at which the university’s vice chancellor proclaimed that Alison “was a titan of the human spirit”.

The top ‘Power 100 2016’ were announced at a gala evening on in London where Justin Tomlinson MP, Minister for Disabled People, said: “I fully support and commend the Power 100 for raising the profile of disabled people and their achievements. From paralympians to broadcasters, and from educators to business people, this list reflects the huge range of talent among disabled people in all areas of life and work.”

Alison Lapper MBE