‘Viking’ Peacock ready for biggest battle – and bugs
Hbritain’s Paralympic poster boy is going for a third straight gold in Tokyo, but first he must see off the pesky mosquitoes
Jonnie Peacock is a double Paralympic gold medallist, has entranced the nation on Strictly Come Dancing and presented his own television show – all by the age of 28.
Peacock’s only concession to the passage of time is a full beard and long flaxen hair which makes him resemble a clean-cut Viking, although he insists this is no grand design to intimidate his sprint rivals on the start line at the Tokyo Games, which begin next week.
“Yeah, I wasn’t ever planning on growing the hair again – it’s just laziness,” he says, with a smile.
Peacock has never been a reluctant poster boy for the Paralympic movement. From the day he announced himself at the London 2012 Games – shushing the 80,000-strong crowd as they bellowed his name before the T44 100metres final – confidence has been in ready supply.
Yet the Cambridge-born runner, whose right leg was removed below the knee at the age of five when he contracted life-threatening meningitis, admits his world view is more rounded now, having seen how Paralympic Games – a celebration of what humans “can do, not what they can’t do”, in Peacock’s words – can shift the dial on how disabled people are viewed.
“London 2012 was huge, it threw us all into the limelight,” he says. “The way Channel 4 and the entire media got behind it was fantastic. It was equally represented on the visual platform. That was really cool for the sporting side of it and we as athletes, we don’t see the effect that has.
It’s like a stone in the ocean. It has ripples and waves you don’t necessarily see. I know that’s what happened.”
This desire for greater equivalence in how the Paralympics, and the athletes who compete in them, are treated helps explain his confusion at why some of his London 2012 contemporaries have not been given the highest honours – the sixtime gold medallist, David Weir, for one.
“How on earth has David Weir not been knighted?” Peacock asks. “He should be first in line. I don’t know what more he has to do …”
Peacock, who was awarded an MBE in 2013, travels to Japan knowing that he faces probably the biggest fight of his career to win a gold medal. Not only is there the pressure of being the man everyone wants to beat – few Paralympians in the world have Peacock’s public profile – there is also the curve ball of Covid-19, which will result in events being played out in front of empty stands.
Even for a man of his self-belief, Peacock admits to doubts. “I definitely put a lot of pressure on myself – I have high expectations. But it doesn’t matter how confident I am at the starting line, I can’t do something my body isn’t prepared for. It’s about the body first and then absolutely it’s about who wants it more, who is ready, who deals with the pressure and who is able to keep mistakes out of it in that environment.
“The crowds usually give you a lift. Now you won’t have that, you’ll have to be within yourself a lot more. I do think it’ll have a slight impact. Like Michael Johnson said when I was watching the athletics at the Olympics, it’s still the best athletes competing for the biggest prize, competing in the shape of their lives. It’s always going to be great sport so it doesn’t matter, the pandemic restrictions have just taken some of the noise away.”
Peacock, coached by Dan Pfaff, spoke to fellow athletes in Tokyo during the Olympics – although his
‘I always run my best time at the Games. I will run my best race of the year in the final’
most helpful piece of intelligence was of the more practical variety.
“The main thing that’s come back is to take a lot of bug spray,” he says. “There’s a lot of pests that get into the rooms. In Rio, that’s all we thought about – mosquitoes. Whereas now everyone is thinking about Covid, so they’ve forgotten their bug spray. So far all I’ve heard is there’s mosquitoes. And it’s hot, but we knew that. They gave us the protocols a long time ago, so I think we’re all ready for what’s to come.”
Peacock admits that the year-long delay caused by the pandemic could actually prove a blessing.
“I’d had a knee operation and I was coming back from that,” he says. “We were going to be OK but it was going to be a tight training year, and we would have run out of time for the speed work. This year hasn’t quite gone as well as I hoped. There have been a few ups and downs. But still I think the time delay was the best thing for me.
“Having watched the Olympics – when your excitement goes up tenfold – that track is lightning fast and the heat is doing wonders. It’s great to see everyone and the excitement always builds, but we get a look at the facilities and they look on point.”
This Paralympics will be different on a more fundamental level for Peacock, who is competing for the first time in the T64 event. The reason lies in the often-murky world of International Paralympic Committee classification debates: the T44 category is now reserved for those with a lower limb impairment, but who are able to run or jump using two anatomical limbs; the T64 is for amputees.
Peacock is unimpressed. “That [reclassification] means the IPC can make it look like they’ve done something when they haven’t. I’ve absolutely no clue why they’ve separated 44s and 64s. I think that decision was stupid to start with and also think the 44s were synonymous with amputees, not someone with impairments.
“I think it’s still OK in the 100metres because our personal bests are so close together. I actually don’t mind racing them. They’re
damn tough and it’s fun to face them. But at the end of the day I don’t think they have the right people making the right decisions right now in terms of classification.”
Peacock’s main rival is likely to be the 26-year-old German sprinter Felix Streng, a gold medallist at the 2018 European Championships who has been in ominous form.
Peacock is not above a few mind games with his rival, pointing out that while Streng has all the pre-games form, the Briton has the record of delivering when it matters.
“Felix has been running some very quick times and if I have to say it like it is, I personally think it’s his race to lose,” he says. “He’s run so fast so many times, he’s laid consistent markers down, he’s unofficially broken the world record. He’s run much quicker than I have this year. “I always run my best time at the Games. I will run my best race of the year on that final day. I always do it and that’s why I have confidence going into it. All I can say is Felix has a good start and I run fast in the top end, so it’ll be a good race to watch.
“To win a gold medal in 2012, you could run like 11 seconds. I would say it’s likely to be 10.6, maybe quicker, in Tokyo. That improvement is huge.” Perhaps because he knows his legacy is already secure, Peacock sounds genuine when he says that a gold medal is no longer his obsession.
“Ever since I stepped off the track in 2017 life for me has been about enjoyment. Don’t get me wrong, the competitor in me wants those bonuses and wants more gold medals.
“And yet I think Covid has forced everyone to change their view of their life and have a different perspective and outlook.
“For me that outlook was I’m very happy at home and that’s what mattered. Doesn’t matter how you do it, you’ve just got to find it and enjoy it.
“I don’t need to go and win another gold medal for my happiness. I’d like to, it would probably help the bank more than anything else. But, to be honest, I’m happy competing, training and having enough to live off.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have gone to two ‘normal’ Games. It’s going to be an experience to go and take part in a very unusual Games that will probably live on in history.”