Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies starred as Amazon on Gladiators
Gladiators made its triumphant return to the BBC in 2024 and the hit reboot is now entering its third series, scheduled to broadcast in January 2026.
An exciting live arena tour was confirmed in April 2025, capitalising on the programme’s phenomenal success. As viewers reminisce about the original lineup, many recall Sharron Davies joining as Amazon back in 1995.
Driven by her love for sport and fitness, she established her online platform, Sharron Davies Training, in January 2022. Now aged 63, the former swimming champion has been vocal about being denied Olympic gold in Moscow in 1980, reports the Express.
She has also featured on Question Time, sharing her perspective on transgender rights.
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Davies came second to East German rival Petra Schneider, whose triumph was tainted by performance-enhancing drugs, and she continues to voice her firm stance against ‘doping’.
Her 2023 publication, Unfair Play: The Battle For Women’s Sport, outlines her beliefs about the ongoing marginalisation of female athletes.
Beyond promoting her book, the celebrity has been outspoken regarding trans women’s involvement in women’s sporting events.
In early 2025, she appeared on Good Morning Britain, revealing that she and sailor Tracy Edwards had established a “women’s sports union” dedicated to maintaining the exclusion of transgender competitors from female sports at grassroots and youth levels. She is also recognised for her political activism, having publicly endorsed Conservative Party politician Kemi Badenoch in 2022.
Now the party’s leader, Badenoch nominated Davies for a peerage in honour of her sporting achievements and her advocacy for women’s rights.
In terms of her personal life, she has been married three times between 1987 and 2009. Her first marriage was to gym manager John Crisp, but they divorced four years later in 1991.
The following year, she met Olympic athlete Derek Redmond, and they tied the knot in 1994, welcoming two children together.
Her third marriage was to Tony Kingston, a British Airways pilot, in 2002. The couple had been trying to conceive for four years and had undergone eight rounds of IVF treatment before successfully falling pregnant.
During a Sport Relief event in Devon, she shared: “We’re very optimistic and happy but we’re cautious, too, because of what we have been through.
“Giving birth at 44 doesn’t worry me. So many women go through this as they leave it later to have babies.”
Her third child was born in January 2007, and she separated from her husband after seven years of marriage in 2009.
The new series of Gladiators will premiere in 2026.
