Abi Griffiths

Abi Griffiths (born December 14, 1978) is a British television presenter. Having established herself as a sports presenter, she currently hosts 'Driving Wars' on the TV channel Dave, as well as the England rugby programme 'O2 Inside Line' with Austin Healey.

Education
Griffiths was awarded a sports scholarship to the prestigious Millfield School, an independent school in the village of Street in Somerset. During her time at Millfield, Griffiths captained both the 'First 11' hockey team and the athletics squad, competed in the All England National Athletics Championships and represented the West of England in hockey. She went on to study at Loughborough University, graduating with a 2:1 BA Honours degree in Drama.

Life and career
After university, Griffiths travelled to Australia prior to the Sydney Olympics. Once in Sydney, she enrolled in various broadcast training, whilst working as a personal trainer. Griffiths began her television career in Australia, guest presenting on Channel V as well as presenting lifestyle reports on The Weather Channel. She also had a small role on Home and Away, before leaving for the UK.

UK
Griffiths accumulated over 1000 hours of live TV for channels, including Five US and Five LIVE. She presented entertainment and Red Carpet reports for Play.com and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's online magazine 'Three's a Crowd'. Her favourite experience was interviewing Dame Judi Dench, who showed off her dancing skills at the premiere of the West End musical Dirty Dancing.

Sports Presenting
In 2007 Griffiths' career took a right turn, when with three days notice, she jumped into the pits reporting for Sky Sports on Elite League speedway. With her grandfathers advice (a Poole Pirates Speedway fan) she consumed herself in Speedway facts and figures before beginning the season's live coverage.

In the same year, she presented the FIA European Drag Racing Championship for Channel Five and Motors TV (she has now hosted 5 series) as well the Extreme Sports Channel's all action flagship show Blood, Sweat and Gears, covering everything from quad bikes to motocross.

Griffiths has presented a number of adrenaline based programmes for The Extreme Sports Channel, including The Red Bull X-Fighters showdown at Battersea power station as well as the extreme off-road challenge 'The Red Bull Weston Beach Race'.

In 2010, Griffiths was appointed the new face of Endemol's 'Superleague Formula' on ESPN, a live motorsport championship featuring 12 rounds globally. Griffiths was the 'eyes and ears' of the pits, reporting live on the single-seater action as well as capturing behind-the-scenes footage for the Endemol spin-off magazine programme on ESPN. In 2011 she hosted Channel 4's Formula Ford Championship, whose past drivers include Jenson Button and David Coulthard.

Griffiths quoted her passion for unveiling the personal stories amid high-octane sports in the winter issue of Sport magazine. She has presented 'The MSA Muay Thai Premier league', 'The Cage Wars Championship', both for Sky Sports and 'The Queensbury Boxing League' for Premier Sports. As host of 'The National Sky Diving Championships' Griffiths jumped out of a plane from 15,000 feet and whilst in Quebec reporting on winter sports, she partook in the ice-cross-downhill challenge Red Bull Crashed Ice.

Aside from extreme sports, Griffiths has presented Sky Sports coverage of international Beach Volleyball, interviewing GB Olympic hopefuls Denise Johns and Lucy Boulton as well as Equestrian sports including, The Dubai World Cup, alongside Channel 4's Alice Plunkett and The Landrover Burghley Horse Trials, in which she interviewed Zara Phillips and William Fox-Pitt.

In 2011, Griffiths branched out into more mainstream sports, presenting the England rugby programme 'O2Inside Line' with Austin Healey. During the course of the three series, she received a rugby training session with Shontayne Hape and Matt Banahan, played croquet with Mark Cueto and Ben Youngs and took part in an archery shoot off with 2003 World Cup winner Mike Catt. She has also presented the live screen entertainment at Twickenham Stadium for the Emirates Rugby Sevens.

Griffiths crossed into entertainment, reviewing all things gadgets with Tim Lovejoy on BBC Two's Something for the Weekend as well as hosting Dave's extreme motoring gameshow 'Driving wars', alongside Colin Murray.

Radio and Online
In 2010, Griffiths was a regular contributor on BBC London 94.9, covering everything from motorcross to marathons. More recently, Griffiths guest presented on the live, online topical sports show 'Sports Tonight Live'.