THE INGENIOUS OLYMPIANS
OUR TEAM GB STARS FIND CREATIVE WAYS TO TRAIN DURING LOCKDOWN
OUR Olympic and Paralympic heroes have been forced to get creative to practise their skills while sports facilities have been closed during lockdown.
Award-winning Sportsmail photographer Andy Hooper has visited some of Team GB’s stars — from a safe distance — to document the novel ways they have been training for next year’s Tokyo Games.
1. STEF REID
THE amputee athlete, 35, has been running round her garden with her blade on — and using her wheelchair racer husband as a weight! Reid, who claimed silver in the long jump at the 2016 Paralympics, is married to Canadian Brent Lakatos, the Rio T53 100 metres gold medallist.
2. BECKY AND ELLIE DOWNIE
THE Downie sisters have been training at their family home in Nottingham. Becky, 28, and Ellie, 20, have been hanging out on the monkey bars behind the house as they target Tokyo.
3. ED CLANCY
WHEN not cycling on the road or on rollers, Clancy has been showing off his skills on his trial bike. The Yorkshirebased rider, 35, is aiming to win a fourth straight Olympic gold in Tokyo.
4. ALICE TAI
THE Paralympic champion has had to use the pavement instead of the pool by her south-coast home. Tai, 21, has been working on her backstroke using weights on a rowing machine.
5. KATE FRENCH
WITH no garden, French, 29, is fencing in the fields behind her Cotswolds house. She won bronze at last year’s World Modern Pentathlon Championships.
6. LIAM HEATH
AS he prepares to defend his Olympic kayak sprint title, the former TGI Fridays bartender, 35, has practised his paddling using a kayak ergometer in a marquee in his back garden in Surrey.
7. LUTALO MUHAMMAD
AFTER bronze at London 2012, silver in Rio, the taekwondo star, 28, is going for gold in Tokyo — and he has been getting his kicks at home in Hackney.