Meet Jodie Ounsley (Gladiator’s Fury)

Jodie Ounsley a.k.a. Fury

We were delighted to meet with the inspirational Jodie Ounsley (Gladiator’s ‘Fury’) at the recent BSHAA Roadshow in London.

Despite having a hearing loss since birth, Jodie has already achieved an incredible number of sporting and academic milestones. With the support of her dedicated family she has learned to communicate to a level where it is almost impossible to appreciate she has a hearing loss at all. She even has a ‘proper’ Northern accent.

Jodie (born 17 January 2001) is an English former rugby union player who played for Premier 15s side Exeter Chiefs Women as a winger. In 2019 she became the first deaf female rugby player to play for a senior England side and the world's first-ever deaf female rugby sevens international. She is also a former British Brazilian jiu jitsu champion. She also appeared as "Fury" in the 2024 BBC One reboot of Gladiators and has worked as an interviewer for Channel 4's coverage of the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris.

From Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, Jodie was born prematurely and needed medication which subsequently impacted her hearing and became profoundly deaf. She had a cochlear implant as a toddler, becoming the youngest person in the country to have the procedure. A high achiever in sports she was the junior world coal carrying champion on five occasions and won five sprint titles at the Deaf Athletics Championship, and won a gold medal at the British Open Brazilian jiu-jitsu finals. She attended Shelley College where her sporting endeavours were initially frustrated by a knee injury known as Osgood Schlatter Disease. She began playing rugby in October 2015 and by May 2016 was top try scorer for her age group Sandal Girls RUFC team and was representing Yorkshire under-15s. She attended Loughborough College to study a degree in sports coaching.