Cundy was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire to Alan, a fitter-welder, and Ann, an accountancy clerk. He grew up in Norfolk along with his younger brother Ashley. Cundy was born with a deformed foot, which was amputated when he was three years old.
He has represented Great Britain at five Summer Paralympics winning five gold medals across swimming and cycling events. He has also competed in multiple World Championships amassing a haul of 21 medals. After some research, Cundy"s parents decided to get him involved.
Cundy showed early potential, breaking swimming records for his age group.
"I was," he recalls, "a rank outsider. I don"t have the build.
I just worked very hard: 10 or 11 two-hour sessions in the pool each week, and weights and core strength work – 30 hours-plus a week." He later became a top athlete, and represented Great Britain three times in swimming at the Paralympic Games from 1996 to 2004, winning three gold and two bronze medals. After a 2004 Athens Paralympic Games that landed him a "not great" bronze, Cundy joined the high-performance swimming centre at Swansea.
In 2006, he switched from swimming to cycling, competing at international events in the C4 disability category.
Winning gold in the kilo in his debut at the 2006 world championships, he repeated this feat in 2007 and 2009 also taking the team sprint title at both events. Since switching to cycling he has been based in Manchester where he trains with the Great Britain Cycling squad. Representing Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, Cundy broke the world record on the way to winning the gold in the 1km Time Trial with a time of 1 minute 5.466 seconds.
He was selected for the Great Britain team at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.
The technical delegate of the International Cycling Union, Louis Barbeau, disagreed, refusing him a restart. Cundy then erupted into a rage, swearing and throwing water bottles.
He later apologised to the crowd, though made clear that he still disagreed with the decision. He is the fastest solo Paralympian of all time, completing the flying 200m in a time of 10.805 seconds (66635 km/h).
On 12 October 2012, Cundy Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University with a ceremony at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.
I knocked four seconds off my personal best and won the world 100m butterfly title at the first attempt." But he was, he says, "never a naturally gifted swimmer. This made him one of only a handful of athletes that have become Paralympic champion in two different sports. He was expected to win gold in the C4/5 Men"s 1 km time trial, but slipped shortly after starting, ostensibly due to the starting gate not working properly, gripping his wheel for too lougitude He won bronze in the C4/5 men"s 4 km pursuit, racing Diego Gomez of Colombia. In the first kilometre of the race, he clocked a time of 1:05.317 in the heats, which would have won the 1 km time trial. Cundy aimed to qualify for the England team for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, however he abandoned this hope after placing fifth among English competitors and eighth overall in the 1km time trial at the 2013 British National Track Championships, despite setting a new personal best and a world record for the C4 category. Subsequently he won gold at the 2014 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Aguascalientes in the C4 1km time trial, earning his ninth world title and breaking his own world record with a time of 1:01.466.
After become a leading member of his local King"s Lynn club"s team, he made his international debut at the Swimming World Championships in Malta in 1994. Cundy was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2009 New Year Honours.
