21 Facts About Ade Adepitan

Adedoyin Olayiwola "Ade" Adepitan is a Nigerian-born British television presenter and wheelchair basketball player.

Ade Adepitan is involved in a range of charities promoting access to sport for disabled people, and in 2005 was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to disability sport.

Ade Adepitan moved into presenting, initially primarily for sports programmes during the 2000s.

At the age of fifteen months Adepitan contracted polio, which affected his legs and ultimately left him unable to walk.

Ade Adepitan was educated at Southern Road Primary School in Plaistow, which he credits with helping him with his disability and problems at home.

Ade Adepitan often uses television as a platform to campaign against racism and disability discrimination.

Ade Adepitan was one of three wheelchair basketball players featured in the 2002 BBC One ident Hip-Hop.

Ade Adepitan was one of the main presenters of the children's programme Xchange produced for CBBC and has appeared in the soap opera EastEnders.

Ade Adepitan starred as wheelchair basketball coach, "Baggy Awolowo", in the TV series Desperados.

In 2005, Adepitan participated in Beyond Boundaries which was a four-part documentary in which Adepitan trekked through rainforests, deserts, rivers and mountains in Nicaragua, and made a video diary filmed in London and Spain, talking about his sporting aspirations and how he coped as a London boy living in Zaragoza unable to speak any Spanish.

Ade Adepitan was part of the Channel 4 2014 Winter Paralympic Games and the Rio 2016 Paralympics presenting team alongside Clare Balding.

In 2016, Adepitan co-presented the three-part BBC Two series New York: America's Busiest City alongside Anita Rani and Ant Anstead.

Since 2016, Adepitan has co-presented the BBC's Children in Need appeal.

In 2019, Adepitan presented a new four-part series for BBC Two, Africa with Ade Adepitan, travelling across Africa, from West Africa and the city of his birth - Lagos in Nigeria - through Central and Eastern Africa and on to the deep south of the continent.

Ade Adepitan is a great supporter of the National Society for the Prevention of the Cruelty to Children Charity and the WheelPower Charity.

Ade Adepitan participated in the Disabled Motoring UK Alps 2011 Challenge.

Ade Adepitan was presented with an Honorary Doctorate from Loughborough University, in recognition of his outstanding services to, and performances in, disability sport.

Ade Adepitan was particularly commended for his strong and persistent message of hope within the young black disabled community.

Ade Adepitan was presented with the Lifetime Achievement award by the University of East London in 2010, and had an Honorary Doctorate conferred by the university in November 2010.

In 2020, Adepitan was included in the Powerlist of the 100 most influential Black British people.

On 19 August 2018, Adepitan married singer Linda Harrison in St Paul's Cathedral.