Racing from the top of the world

Not yet 20, Hannah Cockroft may still be new to Paralympic racing but she heads for London 2012 as double world champion in her event

Bright, approachable and photogenic, Hannah Cockroft has the potential to be one of the new breed of stars for TeamGB, in this year’s Paralympics and beyond.

She competes over all the sprint and middle distances between 100m and 800m in the T34 category for wheel­chair-using athletes with cerebral palsy.

Still only 19 years old, she became a double world champion at the IPC World Championships last year over the two short sprints and is now looking to improve on her rapid progress by picking up more medals at this summer’s Games.

“I’m more apprehen­sive than excited at the moment,” she says, “but looking forward to every part of the Games, as well as my actual races. It’s my first Paralympic Games so I’m not quite sure what to expect or how I’ll handle it. Having become double world champion first, I’m going into the Games with quite a bit of pressure riding on me as I’m regarded as a huge medal prospect. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Who wouldn’t compete in a home Games if they were given the chance?!

“I’m keen to give it all I’ve got and hopefully come out on top. For the past four years I’ve dedicated every day of my life to racing and so have many other people who’ve been supporting me all the way through, so just to get on that start line and have the honour and pride of wearing the GB vest gives everyone a little something back, I think, and makes all the hard work worth it.”  

Hannah hadn’t even raced competitively at the time of the last Paralympics in Beijing and despite her rapid rise to success, concedes that she is still something of a rookie and has to be wary of fellow competitors. “Compared to some of the other athletes,” she says, “I’m still fairly new to the sport and still meet­ing the girls that are in my classification.

“At the moment, the T34 classification that I race in is for cerebral palsy and brain damaged athletes, and after their races being cut from the Paralympics in the 2000 Games, we are still on the comeback. The closest girl to me at the moment is from the United Emirates. When I race my best, she’s still a couple of seconds behind but I still think there’s an athlete out there some­where who can beat me, someone who’s going to come kick my ass in 2012, so I train to beat her, who­ever she is.”  

The GB team came in for criticism after Beijing after winning only a small number of medals on the track, and with only David Weir bring­ing home track gold.

Hannah says that a lot of work has been done behind the scenes since then, and that the squad now looks much stronger as a result.

“I think that after the poor performance at the Beijing Paralympics, the team fell apart. But now it’s looking incredibly strong. Our head coach Peter Eriksson is very confident that we can place top 3 in the Games, and most of the older and more experienced athletes have commented on how much more solid the team bond has become, so that’s a good sign.

“We’ve also undergone some tough reviews, so we now have only the best of Britain on the squad. Because of that, unfortunately, some people had to leave, but it’s Go time now: there’s no time left and there can be no excuses once the Paralympics are over.”

Being so new to disability sport, is she excited about the prospect of London 2012 changing attitudes and perceptions of disability?

“It definitely presents an opportunity: it just needs someone to realise that opportunity and exploit it,” she says. “I think the Paralympics is still in the Olympic shadow a bit and seen as the ‘let them have a go’ event. It has come a long way, but it can still come a lot further and I think the work especially done by Channel 4 is really forcing the Paralympians into the public’s attention. I know I’ve done a bit of work with them and I’m starting to get recognised on trains and on the street which is great!

“People are also becoming a lot more accepting of disabilities. I know mine looks strange because of the way I walk, but whereas I used to get comments and staring, it’s not quite as bad now.

“I think people realise we’re just normal human beings! Also, the Games are forcing London to become more wheelchair accessible, so we’ll see how that goes in August!”