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The BBC World Service reaches a weekly global audience of 318 million (2023 data), making it the most listened to radio station in the world. That is why it is a very big deal that its BBC Sport unit interviews athletes who are helping to lead the #ClimateComeback.
Caroline Barker of BBC Sport recently talked sports and climate in separate 13-minute interviews with EcoAthletes Champions Oppong Hemeng, a sports-sustainability consultant and Dallas-based fencer who is pushing to qualify for the Olympics for Ghana, and Ellis Spiezia, the groundbreaking 18-year old EV racer.
Oppong Hemeng
Hemeng shares his multi-faceted story, from his dual American and Ghanaian heritage, to his late-blooming rise as a potential Olympic fencer, to bringing the sport to Ghana, to sports-sustainability consulting, to, yes, wedding officiant.
Click here to listen to Hemeng’s segment.
Oppong Hemeng (Photo credit: North Carolina State University)
Oppong Hemeng in action (Photo credit: Oppong Hemeng)
Ellis Spiezia
Like Hemeng, Ellis Spiezia is also a late bloomer in his sport, electric vehicle racing.
How can that be, you ask, since he’s only 18 years old? “Most kids start in a GoKart when they’re four or five years old and jump into race cars when they’re 14, or 15,” he offered at the beginning of his conversation with Barker, “I started this when I was 13.”
You will learn that Spiezia caught up quickly on many counts, from EV GoKarting to environmental sustainability advocate, to becoming the world’s first native electric racing driver, aka the Electric Renegade!
Click here to listen to the Spiezia interview.
Ellis Spiezia (Photo credit: Francesco Spiezia)
Photo at top: Ellis Spiezia behind the wheel of an EV racing car (Photo credit: Francesco Spiezia)
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