Halifax’s Hannah setting her sights on more success at Tokyo Paralympics
HALIFAX’S HANNAH Cockcroft says she is determined to be stronger and faster by the time next year’s Paralympic Games are held.
Cockroft is currently in training for Tokyo 2020. Postponed due to the world’s coronavirus pandemic, her Paralympic Games will now take place in the summer of 2021.
Hannah said: “I was understandably, pretty gutted when it was announced that Tokyo 2020 was to be postponed. But it’s for the right reasons.
“I’ve worked hard for four years to make sure I was ready for this year and I got a great winter behind me. So, I felt a little lost when the plan and schedule that I’ve worked from was taken away.
“I’m trying to see it as an extra year to get even stronger, even faster and hopefully for the games to be even better. I’m still training as much as I can from home to be ready as soon as we’re allowed to hit the track.”
In an interview with Kintsugi Clothing, the five times Paralympic gold medallist says she was reluctant to try out the sport of wheelchair racing at first.
“I was 15 and I hated wheelchairs. I saw them as a sign of just disability,” she recalled.
“That was all it was to me and I wasn’t disabled in my head.
“I got invited to a talent ID session where I saw wheelchair racing. I didn’t really want to try it.
“The chairs didn’t look comfortable. It didn’t look like a bit of me. My dad being a typical Yorkshireman said, ‘We’ve driven 100 miles for this so you’re going to get in that race chair and you’re going to push it’. And it’s the best thing he ever did.
“I got in the race chair and immediately fell in love. It was a feeling of just freedom that I’d never had before. The racing chair showed me actually they are a sign of independence.
“For the first time I didn’t have to hold on to an adult’s hand. I didn’t have to worry about tripping over my own feet and I could get places quickly, which was something I’d never done before. Those feelings just stuck with me and I wanted to do it every day. That was it. I was hooked.”