On Christmas Eve 2023, a 28-year-old who had been pushing to make Team GB for the Paris Olympics saw his entire career pause in an instant. British judoka Eric Ham fell nearly 20 feet from a bridge after tipping backwards from a ledge. The fall left him with a double fracture in his back and came dangerously close to severing his spinal cord. For a moment, it seemed like his career and perhaps even his mobility might be over.

Ham faced the harsh reality of his injury, admitting he even thought about giving up.

“I considered it many times, just packing it up and moving on with life, trying to find a job,” he said.

After such a serious fall, the possibility that his judo career might be over felt very real.

“Specialists, surgeons, physios-they all pretty much agreed that I wouldn’t be doing judo ever again,” he recalled.

But Ham couldn’t let it go.

“There was something inside me that wanted to keep going and where I could get back to,” the Olympic hopeful added, “You’d have to do the rehab regardless, just for general health, but I think there was a fire inside me. Because I wasn’t able to finish the sport on my own terms, I don’t think I could have lived with that. I had to try to get back to wherever I could. I owed it to myself to try.”

To give himself the best chance of returning to sport, Olympic hopeful Ham underwent a complex surgery to stabilize his spine, with metal rods and screws inserted. This rehab to bring him back on his feet and walking slowly became a plan to get him back to competitive judo. Therapy, training, and determination hours would eventually transform him not only into surviving but also into leading up to high-level competition again.

Each small success between his first steps and gaining the ability to throw with his arm strength provided him with the perseverance to continue pushing towards the greater goal: to be on the mat once again. And in 2025, he came back at last. 

But even before that, he was already a shining light for British judo.

Olympic hopeful rises from world medals to inspiring comeback

Before the accident, Ham had already established himself as one of Britain’s rising judo stars. Competing for Great Britain at both European and World Championships, Eric Ham was part of the country’s elite performance program.

Over the course of many years, he amassed a proud achievements history, including gold at the European Cup in Celje 2019, bronze at the European Open in Cluj Napoca and the Oceania Open at Perth 2022, and also in 2023, silver at the Scottish Open in Largs and bronze medals at the European Open in Sarajevo and the Oceania Open in Perth.

After the accident, Ham made a return in November 2025 at the Oceania Open on Australia’s Gold Coast, winning one of his three matches. But for him, just competing again was a huge victory.

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“The fighting, the throwing, the exact things that cause all this pain are the same reasons why you love it,” he shared.

“The competition gave me a fresh start and a mental reset to continue with the rehab. I tried to keep the fun of the sport, because that often gets put to the back of your mind when you get to high performance.”

Ham’s story shows that with courage and determination, you can get back up, no matter how hard the fall.