WARRIOR QUEENS
Bullying, domestic abuse & horrific injury – how Athena, Comet and Sabre triumphed over adversity to join Gladiators
The Gladiators also reveal their childhood heroes
IT might be 2025, but with the shops full of baggy jeans, Oasis preparing to go on tour and, of course, Gladiators dominating Saturday-night TV, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d gone back to the glory days of the ’90s.
Since last January’s BBC reboot of the iconic family show, which originally aired on ITV from 1992 until 2000, Gladiators has become the channel’s biggest entertainment show in years, with around 8 million people tuning in to every episode to watch 16 Lycra-clad muscle mountains putting contenders through the ultimate physical tests (and leaving us wishing we had an oversized cotton bud and the strength to knock someone off a podium).
10
So, with the show now in its second series, we hang (tough) with Comet, Athena and Sabre to find out what it takes to be the most kick-ass women on TV.
‘Losing Dad made me tough’
Comet, AKA Ella-Mae Rayner, 29, on how grief shaped her, and learning to walk again after that horrific Hang Tough injury.
10
10
Three episodes into filming Gladiators series one, and Comet feared her TV career was over before it had begun.
During a round of the Hang Tough swinging event, a contestant dropped 3.6m on to her, breaking her right ankle and foot in multiple places.
READ MORE ON GLADIATORS
“As soon as the injury happened, I feared I’d be off the show, but the producers were amazing,” she says.
“One of the first things they said to me was: ‘You’re not going anywhere.
“We just need you to get better, recover, get back on your feet and get stronger.’ So that’s what I did.”
After surgery in June 2023 to stabilise her broken bones with two metal plates and 10 screws, Comet faced seven months of recovery, including learning to walk again.
Most read in Celebrity
But by the time filming for series two started last summer, she was ready, albeit petrified of returning to the rings.
“I was really nervous, worrying: ‘What if it happens again?’” she says.
“When you’ve had trauma and surgery, you’re always aware that you’ve hurt that body part, so it’s about trusting your body again.
“But once I did that first run, I was fine.”
I may have been too feisty tonight but unexpected star was iconic, says Gladiators’ Sabre
It wasn’t the first time Comet had bounced back from the brink.
After quitting gymnastics aged 13, because her 5ft 8in height became a disadvantage, she was inspired to start high-diving by watching Olympian Tom Daley compete.
While at university, she did cheerleading at a national level until, in 2017, she shattered her left foot during a tumble and was told she could no longer do the high-impact sports she loved.
“I ended up in a bad place. I wouldn’t use the word ‘depressed,’ but it was close. It was a really low point,” says Comet, who has a degree in sports science.
Until then, she had never trained “to lift or look a certain way” but when she began using weights to strengthen herself back on to two feet, she discovered a love for training that led her to qualify as a personal trainer during the pandemic.
Taking voluntary redundancy from her job in aviation, she became a fitness influencer and now has a combined TikTok and Instagram following of almost 1 million – a presence that got her noticed by Gladiators.
“It’s a big group friendship,” she says of her show “family”.
“We’ve got a big Gladiator group chat, then a separate girls’ chat to discuss things we don’t want the boys involved in, like: ‘What knickers are you wearing under your outfit?’ or discussing who’s on their period that week and feeling bloated.
“That’s something people don’t really think about!”
Comet, who has been in a relationship with fitness and PT business entrepreneur James Exton, 36, for the past three years, insists there’s no romance brewing between the other cast members.
“A lot of us have partners and it’s just not that sort of environment. We’re all sporty people and like a family. Giant is the dad of the group, Sabre’s the mum because she’s very wise, and Dynamite is like the little sister that I always wanted,” she says.
Comet credits her real-life mum Suzanne, who works as her PA, for helping her get where she is today.
She supported Comet and her elder brother Max, 31, through their grief after their dad Stuart died at the age of 44 in October 2009. Ella-Mae was just 14.
“Dad was unwell and it was out of the blue, a shock. It was tough,” she says.
“Nothing had ever hit that deep in my life, so that was rock bottom, but I genuinely think that made me the toughest.
“I had counselling, but Mum guided me and my brother through the whole thing and always gave us everything.
“She sacrificed her whole life for us.
“I think that’s why I am so driven today.”
10
‘I started powerlifting and the bullying stopped’
From bullied schoolgirl to powerlifting champion, there’s no stopping Athena, AKA Karenjeet Kaur Bains, 28.
10
10
As a Team GB powerlifter, Athena is no stranger to breaking down barriers.
The first Sikh woman to represent Britain at European and world levels, she’s shattering stereotypes of what women can achieve in a male-dominated sport.
Now, the Warwick-based athlete is crushing it again, as the first-ever South Asian Gladiator.
“I’m living my dream,” she says.
“I literally get to be a superhero.”
Athena credits her “forward-thinking” parents, mum Manjit and dad Kuldip, an ex-powerlifter and bodybuilder who’s also her coach, for encouraging her to chase her sporting goals instead of taking the “stereotypical pathway” of many South Asian girls, who sacrifice their dreams for marriage and motherhood.
“In my culture, girls don’t do what I do,” explains Athena, who was a high-achieving teen sprinter before discovering a passion for powerlifting at 17.
Within two years of training in the gym in her back garden, she was Junior Commonwealth Powerlifting Champion and then became a five-time All England Powerlifting Champion.
She also set a Guinness World Record for the most bodyweight squats in one minute.
“I’m all about shattering glass ceilings and showing that women can be strong.
“We’re not just destined for the kitchen.”
Athena says she receives a lot of messages from parents, thanking her for the positive influence she’s having on kids, but sadly, she’s no stranger to trolls either.
“[They] see a woman with a muscly back, and they’re like: ‘Transsexual!’ I just laugh and joke: ‘Clearly I’m stronger than you and you’re weak. It must bother you.’”
Athena also attracts “hate” from her own community, including disapproval of her Gladiators costume.
“I think: ‘Why have you decided that you’re going to objectify me? You don’t see my gold medals, you don’t see the hard work that I put in, you’ve just decided that the shorts are a crime,’” she says.
“It’s wrong. Every woman should be able to embrace their true selves.”
This mindset was Athena’s shield as a teen, when she was targeted by bullies.
A former head girl, she also set seven school athletics records and became three-time Warwickshire champion in hammer-throwing as well as the 300m sprint.
“School wasn’t easy, as I experienced a lot of jealousy.
“I had hate campaigns against me on social media.
“When I raced on sports day, kids from my own school house would say: ‘I hope you fall over at the start line,’ and pen hair on their arms to make me feel self-conscious about mine.”
Only when Athena began powerlifting did the bullying stop.
“No one touched me because they knew I was strong.
“I let it go a long time ago, but it’s made me a lone soldier.
“I just rely on myself and my family.”
Now, Athena is busy planning her next triumphs.
“I’d love to be a TV presenter.
“I love motivational speaking and would like to have a platform at the UN to talk about female empowerment or children’s rights or even do a TED Talk. The sky’s the limit!”
In the meantime, she’s relishing her foray into the glitzy showbiz world.
“I’ve met Holly Willoughby – she’s very sweet.
“Recently, at an awards ceremony, I was in a room with Simon Cowell, the Strictly judges, Carol Vorderman and the Prime Minister.
“I thought: ‘Wow, I’ve really come far in life!’”
Meeting her childhood hero Dame Kelly Holmes was the ultimate pinch-me moment.
“As a kid, I watched her and Jessica Ennis-Hill. I draw inspiration from them.”
Now, she’s doing the same for a new generation.
How does that feel?
“Totally surreal, but amazing.”
10
‘I turned up at Women’s Aid begging for help’
Sabre, AKA super-athlete Sheli McCoy, 36, survived almost a decade of domestic abuse before finding strength and success beyond her wildest dreams.
10
10
A Scottish weightlifting and CrossFit champion and coach, Sabre can deadlift 160kg (the weight of a chest freezer), trains six days a week and hill hikes on rest days.
Yet, just over a decade ago, the tattooed, tough-as-nails Gladiator was at rock bottom after escaping a violent relationship.
“He couldn’t handle his anger and would express it physically,” recalls Sabre, who went up five dress sizes while dating her abusive ex.
“I went from a size eight to a size 16.
“I wasn’t allowed to go to the gym.
“I felt I wasn’t good enough.
“I was worried he’d leave me as there were plenty of girls who were prettier, nicer and cleverer than me.
“I felt inadequate all the time.”
Thankfully, Sabre managed to escape her ex in her early 20s, turning to Women’s Aid for help.
She was so grateful for their support that, last month, when she triumphed in a Gladiators special of BBC’s The Weakest Link, she donated her £6,450 prize pot to the domestic abuse charity.
“I turned up [at Women’s Aid] and said: ‘Help me’,” she says, describing how she “rose like a phoenix from the flames,” moving home with her mum Kaz, and getting a restraining order against her ex.
She spent six months going “all guns blazing” into daily CrossFit workouts and dropped to a size 6 – but it led to unhealthy behaviours.
“I didn’t eat to punish my body, and I trained to punish my body.
“I stayed away from friends to punish myself.”
Fortunately, she learned how to switch her mindset and found a healthier approach.
“Within a year of starting CrossFit, I was inspired by strong women to gain weight and muscle strength and celebrate everything that my body could do,” says Sabre, who went on to set records in Olympic weightlifting at the Scottish Championships, as well as becoming Scottish Champion in five British Weightlifting Championships plus a CrossFit Champion.
“A lot of therapy” over the years has transformed her too, and she is now devoted to building a thriving fitness community at her Dundee-based gym and online training platform where she says “everybody feels welcome”.
Of course, in the Gladiators arena in Sheffield, there’s only room for her alter-ego, the kick-ass Sabre.
“‘Sabre incoming’ is one of the biggest sayings. I get my hair and make-up done, I put my suit on and I’m gone,” she laughs.
“Sabre is the girl that all girls like and all men want.
“I really push into that role, because they’re my demographic!”
Describing her own love life as “complicated”, Sabre is no stranger to admirers sliding into her DMs.
“I get asked out all the time. I get dinner proposals and people want to send me gifts,” she says, recalling the time she mentioned an £895 trench coat she liked on Instagram.
“Five minutes later, I had around 10 DMs from people saying: ‘What size do you want? I’ll get it for you’.
“The willpower it took to say no!” she laughs.
Sabre initially thought her invitation to try out for Gladiators was a hoax.
“I ignored them, because I thought: ‘That’s not possible!’
“Gladiators was the greatest show in history.
“Women were running around a studio like superheroes and being celebrated at a time when they weren’t as celebrated as athletes.
“These women were breaking the mould, which is something that I have always aspired to do.”
Sabre is now living that dream.
But in a cruel twist of fate, she believes she might not have done so had her army sergeant father Sean survived a car accident that killed him when she was three.
“My dad doted on me, apparently.
“I can imagine him having done everything for me – fixing the tyres on my car, getting my first apartment at uni, beating up any boys who were mean to me.
“One of the greatest things that has ever happened in my life is that I do all that for myself.”
READ MORE SUN STORIES
- Watch Gladiators, Saturdays, 5.50pm, BBC1 and iPlayer.
10
Unlock even more award-winning articles as The Sun launches brand new membership programme - Sun Club.
Topics