Gabby Logan

**Gabrielle Nicole "Gabby" Logan**(nee Yorath; born April 24, 1973) is a British presenter and a former Welsh international gymnast who is best known for her presenting roles with BBC Sport and ITV.

Logan hosted Final Score for BBC Sport from 2009 until 2013. She has also presented a variety of live sports events for the BBC, including a revived episode of Superstars in December 2012 and the London Marathon since 2015.

Since 2013, she has co-hosted Sports Personality of the Year for the BBC and she presented the second series of The Edge in 2015.

## Early Life

Logan was born in Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire to former Welsh international footballer and manager Terry Yorath and his wife Christine when Yorath was playing for Leeds United. Due to her father's career, Logan had to move around much in her youth, as her father played for a number of British teams as well as the Canadian team Vancouver Whitecaps. She attended Bishop Ullathorne RC School in Coventry, Cardinal Heenan High School and Notre Dame Sixth Form College in Leeds and read Law at the College of St Hild and St Bede, Durham University.

Logan played netball at school and at university and also competed at high jump, but the peak of her sporting career was when she placed 11th in rhythmic gymnastics representing Wales at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland. She had to retire from gymnastics aged 17 due to sciatica.

Logan became interested in football during her regular attendances at her father's matches, to which her mother went out of a "sense of duty". On May 11, 1985, she was in the crowd at Valley Parade when the Bradford City stadium fire happened. She, along with her brother and sister, had left the stand only moments before the fire took hold and watched the disaster taking place.

Logan's debut TV appearance was when she was chosen as the Leeds Rose for the 1991 Rose of Tralee competition.

Logan runs and plays golf and is a supporter of Newcastle United stretching back to her time at Durham University, where her then boyfriend was a childhood fan. She remembers her first match as Newcastle's 1-0 Premier League victory over Everton on August 25, 1993 and made visits by air or rail to St. James' Park throughout the 1990s ad early 2000s, including Newcastle's 5-0 win over Manchester United on October 20, 1996.

## Early Career

After university, Logan began presenting on Metro Radio in Newcastle, from where she was offered a job as a presenter on Sky Sports in 1996. She worked there until 1998, when she joined the ITV TV network.

## Television

### **ITV**

Logan's career came to notice when she fronted On the Ball. Logan was one of a small number of female sports presenters to have made the transition to terrestrial television. After ITV lost the terrestrial rights to the Premier League, she has presented their UEFA Champions League coverage, including the 2005 and 2006 finals, between A.C. Milan and Liverpool, and Arsenal and Barcelona, respectively. Logan left ITV for BBC Sport in December 2006. In 2003, she reported on the Rugby World Cup. Also that year, Logan presented a programme called Britain's Brilliant Prodigies featuring a young Jessie J.

Logan stepped in for Melanie Sykes on July 6, 2004 when she went on maternity leave partway through the third series of game show The Vault.

Gabby co-hosted the celebrity diving show Splash! on ITV, alongside Vernon Kay and Olympic diver Tom Daley from 2013 until 2014.

In 2015, Logan returned to ITV for reality series Flockstairs. In an interview with Radio Times in November 2016, Logan admitted that Flockstars was her "biggest disappointment".

### **BBC**

Logan started presenting for BBC Sport on January 27, 2007, presenting coverage of the FA Cup fourth round tie between Luton Town and Blackburn Rovers. She continues to present and report on live football for the BBC and Logan now deputises for Gary Lineker on Match of the Day. Logan hosted Final Score from 2009 until 2013 before being replaced by Jason Mohammad. When Craig Doyle left BBC Sport to go to ITV in 2008 the BBC needed a new host for the 6 Nations with 2 or 3 matches being broadcast every weekend therefore Gabby Logan was recruited, she previously reported on the 2003 Rugby World Cup for ITV and works alongside the likes of Jeremy Guscott, Keith Wood, Jonathan Davies and Andy Nicol.

Logan is now the main host of Athletics for BBC Sport. Amongst her main duties, has been hosting live coverage of the World Athletics Championships in 2013, and the European Athletics Championships and Commonwealth Games in 2014. Also included is the prestigious annual IAAF Diamond League season competition. She presents in the BBC Studio alongside Michale Johnson, Paula Radcliffe, Colin Jackson, Denise Lewis and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Logan hosted Games Today between 7.00pm - 8.00pm at the 2008 Olympic Games for the BBC and hosted Olympics Tonight between 10.40pm - 12.00am again for the BBC. Logan has reported from the England camp for the 2010 World Cup, Euro 2012 and World Cup 2014 while also being a pitchside reporter at the venues when England are playing.

Being a sports presenter, Logan has also hosted live coverage of other sporting events such as the 2013 Aquatics World Championships.

Since 2009, Logan has been a frequent stand-in presenter on The One Show on BBC One.

In August 2013, Logan began hosting the BBC One series I Love My Country, featuring team captains Micky Flanagan and Frank Skinner on Saturday evenings, however, on October 25, 2013, the programme was axed due to largely negative press reviews and poor viewing figures.

In September 2013, the BBC announced that, as of 2013, Logan would replace Sue Barker as one of the presenters for the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

In March 2015, Logan hosted Let's Play Darts for Comic Relief for BBC Two. The show returned for a second series in February 2016.

She presented live coverage of the 2015 London Marathon, broadcast on BBC One on April 26, the 2016 London Marathon on April 24 and the 2017 London Marathon on April 23. In August 2015, she was the main presenter for BBC's coverage of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics from Beijing.

Logan presented the second series of the BBC game show The Edge in 2015. She replaced Mark Benton who hosted Series 1.

In 2016, Logan was part of the presenting team for The Invictus Games on BBC One. She was also a part of the media team during the BBC's coverage of the 2016 UEFA European Championship in France.

In 2017 she hosted the BBC IAAF coverage in London.

### **Channel 5**

In June 2011, while still presenting the sports results shows for BBC One on Saturdays, Logan joined Channel 5 to present a discussion and magazine show following The Wright Stuff at 11.10am each weekday initially called The Wright Stuff Extra, and later renamed as Live with Gabby. On April 5, 2012, the show tweeted to confirm that Logan was leaving the programme.

## Filmography

### **Guest Appearances**

* Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (2002, 2010)
* Celebrity Stars on Their Eyes (2002)
* All Star Family Fortunes (2006)
* 8 Out of 10 Cats (2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016)
* Would I Lie to You? (2008, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2017)
* Never Mind the Buzzcocks (2009, 2015)
* They Think It's All Over: Comic Relief Special (2011)
* Wall of Fame (2011)
* Shooting Stars (2011)
* Room 101 (2012, 2017)
* The Angelos Epithemiou Show (2012)
* The Big Fat Quiz of the Year (2012)
* All Star Mr & Mrs (2013)
* The Last Leg (2013)
* Was It Something I Said? (2013)
* Have I Got News for You (2013)
* That Puppet Game Show (2014)
* Through the Keyhole (2014)
* Pointless Celebrities (2015, 2016)
* Celebrity Squares (2015)
* Alan Carr's 12 Stars of Christmas (2016)
* Insert Name Here (2017)
* Jack Dee's Inauguration Helpdesk (2017)
* Don't Ask Me Ask Britain (2017)
* Britain's Favourite Dogs: Top 100 (2017)

## Radio

Logan has worked on BBC Radio 5 Live, where she presented a lunchtime show from January 2010. Her previous Sunday morning was taken over by Kate Silverton. On October 20, 2009, it was announced that Logan would be leaving her Sunday morning slot on BBC Radio 5 Live and starting a new weekday show on the station from 12:00 noon to 2:00pm (Monday-Friday) which began on January 11, 2010.

In light of the move of BBC Radio 5 Live from London to MediaCityUK in Salford, Logan left her weekday show in April 2011 due to other BBC work and family commitments. She was replaced by Shelagh Fogarty.

On April 12, 2009, she presented the BBC Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of St John's Catholic School for the Deaf.

## Other Work

In December 2012, Logan was appointed as a non-executive director of Perform Group.

In 2014, Logan helped launch Tesco's Farm to Fork initiative.

Logan is the voice-over for the MegaRed heart health commercial advertisements.

Logan writes regularly for The Times newspaper.

In August 2014, Logan was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.

## Awards and Nominations

Logan has won "Sports Presenter of the Year" four times at the Television and Radio Industries Club Awards in 2000, 2002, 2004 and in 2014, while also being nominated a further three times in 2007, 2008 and in 2010. Logan was crowned "Tesco Celebrity Mum of the Year" in March 2012. Logan received a longlist nomination for "Most Popular Entertainment Presenter" at the 2014 National Television Awards. She was also nominated for "Sports Presenter, Commentator or Pundit" at the 2014 Royal Television Society Awards, losing out to Gary Neville but did win "Sports Programme" as part of the BBC Athletics team.

Upon becoming one of the first female sports anchors to break into terrestrial television in the 1990s, Logan has received praise from many of her fellow professionals such as Terry Venables, Ally McCoist and Des Lynam. Being described as a remarkably natural broadcaster, combined with her easy style and ability to banter with whatever ex-pro who is she working alongside, has made Logan a hugely popular figure on the box.

When Logan was in the running to replace Des Lynam to front ITV's football highlights show The Premiership, fellow sports presenter Jimmy Hill stated, "I've known Gabby for many years and am pleased to see how well she is doing. She's very intelligent and pretty and, like Des, has the right sort of personality for a successful presenter".

Logan, along with Clare Balding, received continuous praise for their commentary during the coverage 2012 Summer Olympics. Logan was referred to as "poised, warm and groomed". Politician Boris Johnson praised Logan's contribution during the BBC's coverage of the London Games, also saying that his favourite part of coverage was the late-night summary with Gabby Logan.

## Personal Life

In 1992, Logan's 15-year-old brother Daniel collapsed and died from hypertrophic cardiomyoopathy. Logan has actively appealed for the Daniel Yorath Appeal, which raises funds for the treatment and detection of the condition.

Her brother Jordan Yorath (born 1986) played football for England Universities in 2008 while in the final year of his planning and development surveying degree at Northumbria University. Jordan was previously at Sheffield Wednesday and Halifax Town as a young professional and is currently registered to Wakefield F.C.. Logan's sister, Louise (born 1974) is a performer in the Cirque Du Soleil's Zumanity, the resident cabaret-style show at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Logan married former Scotland international rugby union player Kenny Logan on July 19, 2001. She has said that meeting her husband was a motivation to exercise regularly again. The couple live in Kew, southwest London.

On July 28, 2005, after undergoing IVF treatment, Logan gave birth to twins, son Reuben and daughter Lois.

In June 2012, Logan was named by The Times newspaper as one of several people to have put money into a film and tax avoidance scheme.

In January 2013, Logan was named the first Chancellor of Leeds Trinity University. In November 2017 it was announced that Logan would step down from this role in January 2018 after five years.

### **Philanthropy**

Logan is currently a patron of The Disabilities Trust, The Prince's Trust, St John's Catholic School for the Deaf and Great Ormond Street Hospital. She and her husband Kenny Logan are past presidents of the children's charity Sparks.