Watching Jodie Ounsley squaring up to competitors as Fury on , it’s hard to believe she’s ever been anything but strong and confident. And at the age of 24, Jodie already has a remarkable career under her belt. The first deaf female rugby player to have appeared for a senior England side, she represented England and Great Britain at rugby sevens.

She has won , served as honorary president of UK Deaf Sport, and visits schools talking to children about her story. But behind the scenes, Jodie, from Thornhill, West Yorkshire, has overcome shyness and self-doubt, almost walking away from the game when difficulties with communication became too much. She’s now sharing the lessons she’s learned in a

Born seven weeks premature and diagnosed with profound , Jodie’s parents Phil, 55, and Jo, 53, were told their daughter probably wouldn’t speak, and would find it hard to get an education or a job when she grew up. It was her parents’ quick action, Jodie says, that set her on the path to success.

“They didn’t know any deaf people at the time. They went into this mindset of, ‘well, what can we do?’” Phil and Jo took Jodie to sessions at the Elizabeth Foundation, an organisation supporting deaf children, when she was three months, focusing on body language, eye contact and the start of lip-reading.

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At 14 months, she was one of the youngest people in the UK to get a cochlear implant, a device which uses a sound processor to send signals to the ear that the brain can interpret as sound. “It’s not a quick fix,” says Jodie. “It’s a lot of work. My mum gave up her job and spent all day taking me to speech therapy then back home for practice, having that constant time with me.”

The hard work paid off. Jodie was able to join mainstream primary school and began to dream of sporting glory, finding that PE lessons were the one time she could forget about being deaf. After watching in the , Jodie became “obsessed” with the Olympics and set her heart on competing herself.

“I was so competitive at school,” she laughs. “I was always racing against the boys. Sports Day was the to me. Other kids turned up in PE kit and I had the audacity to turn up in a muscle vest and shorts. I was like, this means business.” At primary school, she says, “I remember thinking the implant was a cool thing. I didn’t understand how it worked – I thought they’d cut my ear off and put a robot ear on!”

But as Jodie moved into middle and high school, something shifted. “I wanted to fit in,” she says. She’d hide her implant under her hair and, when she couldn’t hear, felt too shy to let teachers know. In addition to difficulty following lessons, she was suffering with hearing fatigue.

“With the implant, I can pick up certain sounds – I’ve been told it sounds robotic. But most of the time it’s just filling in the gaps – a lot of guesswork, lip-reading and body language. I didn’t know about , I just got migraines a lot. We got it checked out and I was given a pair of glasses, which didn’t do anything.”

Jodie started taking part in sprint races aged nine, won gold at the British Open Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships aged 11 then, at 15, watched her brother Jack playing rugby. She was desperate to get involved. With rugby sevens included in the 2016 Olympics, Jodie felt she’d found her path and set her heart on selection for the England sevens in 2020.

The potential risk, however, was huge. Doctors advise against playing contact sports when fitted with a cochlear implant as once damaged, there is a chance that repair won’t be possible and hearing will be lost. But Jodie was determined. Working with specialists and with her parents’ support, they came up with a solution – wearing a scrum cap with extra padding to protect the implant.

Her dreams were on track until, aged 16, living away at Loughborough College to study and play rugby, Jodie began to doubt herself. As well as finding communication challenging in the classroom, it was difficult on the rugby field too, and she still lacked the confidence to say anything.

After suffering a shoulder injury and missing six months of rugby, she started to feel there were “too many challenges” and considered giving up. She confided in mum Jo, who suggested Jodie speak with a psychologist. “It felt very daunting but the psychologist was lovely,” says Jodie. “She gave me different ways to let people know if I was struggling and techniques to fall back on.”

Moving to London to join the England sevens team at 18 was a huge turning point. “We did a presentation about ourselves for team bonding. It was the perfect time to bring up my deafness and by doing that, we all felt comfortable. My coach even went to the lengths of using microphones and drones we used for training to show me what I might be missing. “I realised there are people who really want to help and support you.”

Jodie’s resilience was sorely tested in 2021. In 2020, months before the Tokyo Olympics were due to take place, Jodie was part of Great Britain’s rugby sevens team with a good chance of being selected for the Games. Her lifelong Olympic dream was within reach. But then Covid hit, delaying Tokyo by a year.

That September, Jodie badly injured her hamstring and was out for six months. By the time the new dates were announced she’d missed too much training and didn’t make the team.

She was heartbroken. “I’d had that dream since I could remember. I thought, this is what I’m meant to be. I felt like I was a failure.” After taking time out to recover, Jodie realised she needed to grab opportunities where she could, applying to be on the rebooted series of Gladiators. After a successful audition, she was asked to appear as . “I’d found a new dream,” she says.

In 2024, Jodie was asked to present TV coverage from the in Paris. “Because I didn’t go to the Olympics, it’s pushed me in a different direction. New opportunities arrived. I never would have thought I’d have the confidence to . “With presenting, the earpieces don’t work for me. We found ways to make it work. Filming Gladiators is 11 days back to back. Noise can be really overwhelming at times, especially if I’m tired. I do get migraines but I’m more on top of it now. I know where my limit is.”

From playing contact sport to presenting to becoming a TV Gladiator, Jodie’s dreams are often at odds with what she’s been advised to pursue. “We joke about it in the family,” she laughs. “Right now, I don’t have a dream, which is as I’ve always had something, whether it’s playing for England or getting to the Olympics. Now I’m just taking opportunities.”

As she looks forward to Keep Smashing It being published, Jodie says: “I want kids to know that sometimes things just don’t work out but another dream can come from it. I feel so passionate about the book. If it helps just one person, I’ll be happy with that.”