Golden girl Libby has hung up the spikes and got on her bike to chase a new cycle of success
LIBBY CLEGG has spent six months getting up to speed in her new craft, but some of the finer details still prove elusive. A double Paralympic gold medallist on the athletics track as a sprinter, she has been fast-tracked into the world of tandem cycling. A very public evaluation of her progress beckons over the next fortnight in the Commonwealth Games’ velodrome outpost in East London. But in what events? ‘This is
the thing,’ Clegg giggles. ‘I don’t even know the names of everything yet.’
For the record, the visually-impaired aspiring two-sport star will race the team sprint and then the one kilometre time trial. Piloted by the formidable Tokyo medallist Jenny Holl, the 32-year-old rookie is very much flying blind.
There have been profitable journeys before down this path. Neil Fachie, moderately successful running over 100 and 200m in Beijing, transformed into a medal machine on a bike. His new colleague on Team Scotland has modest initial ambitions, even if her enthusiasm stretches far beyond.
It is a far cry from her sprinting curtain call in Japan last autumn when she struggled in the build-up before walking away with a relay silver, her fifth Paralympic gong.
That cycle had been interrupted, joyously, by the arrival of a son for Clegg and her para judo partner Dan Powell. There was also the fun diversion of celebrity status with third place on Dancing On Ice.
Athletics, however, was no longer an unreservedly happy place. Pressure and injury brought on mental-health traumas and she decided to call time on the track.
‘I knew I needed to stop,’ she admits. ‘I have absolutely no intention of ever running again. Maybe for a bus, but that’s it. My body had just given up. And it was getting to the point where it’s actually not good for me to try and carry on.
‘I just wanted to close that chapter. But because I’d been on the bike rehabbing, when the opportunity came about from British Cycling to give this a test, I thought I’d give it a go.’
Covid cost her a chance to properly cash in on her fleeting ice dancing fame. She works part-time for a sight loss charity and it has, figuratively at least, opened her eyes.
‘Sometimes, as athletes, we forget that everybody else has other problems,’ she admits. ‘You just sort of crack on with things. Especially being a para athlete, you overcome things quite a lot of the time.
‘I think you forget normal people that are disabled have problems, too. So it’s nice to be able to support people in a different way.’
To her relief, son Edward, now threeyears-old, so far appears to be free of the Stargardt’s syndrome which limits the vision of Clegg and her Paralympic swimming medal-winning siblings, James and Stephen.
The Commonwealths will be the first time Edward witnesses either of his parents up close in competition. With
the 2024 Paris Paralympics just two years away, Clegg is allowing herself to dream of having her son watch her become a sprint sensation again in her second sporting life.
‘There’s definitely an opportunity there for me to develop in time for Paris,’ she states. ‘Because I’ve got that basic knowledge already. Sometimes when you’re learning how to be an athlete, it’s all those commitments — like eating right, sleeping right, that lifestyle that you need to develop — that you don’t always have when you’re younger.
‘I’ve got all that experience and know how to compete under pressure in front of big crowds. So I’ve got that element of it sorted. It’s just getting more time on the bike.
‘I will put out my best performance, you can count on me for that. It just might not be good enough. But you know, that’s okay.’
Being a para athlete, you overcome things a lot of the time