29
Apr
Harrogate fitness champion who 'lit up the gym' dies aged 31
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A multi-titled fitness champion from Harrogate has died after contracting a rare and aggressive form of cancer.
Chanelle Smith, who would have been 32 next month, won numerous bikini bodybuilding competitions after she started competing in 2016.
She died yesterday (April 28), less than a month after setting up an online fundraising appeal to raise £150,000.
Chanelle started the appeal, which had raised £30,000, after the NHS declined funding for treatment.
Pictured in 2022
She noticed something was wrong in June 2024, when she was admitted to hospital with severe abdominal and chest pains.
Three months later she was diagnosed with adenosquamous ovarian cancer, which accounts for less than 1% of ovarian cancer cases.
Writing on her gofundme page, she said:
I am so extremely hopeful and wanting for life, but time is against me, and I thank you with all my heart if you could help me raise funding for private cancer treatment to keep me alive.
Chanelle's gofundme page
Chanelle, who worked as a police officer, wrote that in “the worst-case scenario”, the money raised would be split between Cancer Research UK and Ovarian Cancer Action.
Chanelle was well known on the Harrogate gym scene and those who remembered her expressed their shock and sadness on social media last night. Emily Mitchell posted:
You lit up the gym with your determination and power. You fought so unbelievably hard and you will be unbelievably missed.
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