Asked how she was feeling shortly before London 2012, Hannah Cockroft said her main concern was stage fright. Cockroft knew she had the potential to race at a blistering speed. It was all in her head but she was an inexperienced teenager four years ago and the thought of freezing in front of a home crowd terrified her.
Perhaps the fretting helped Cockroft to maintain her focus. That is one way of looking at it. Another is to conclude there really was no reason for her to worry given her victories in the 100m and 200m (both T34) were never in doubt. They confirmed the suspicion Cockroft is an athlete who has the ability to make the whole process of competing look uncommonly easy.
Nothing that has happened in the four years since has altered that impression. “I’ve won every major title since 2012 and I’ve only lost one race in the last four years,” Cockroft says and she is not being arrogant. She is the world champion in her three events, the 100m, 400m and 800m (all T34).
Anyone would be confident having achieved that level of success and this time she will not allow her mind to play tricks on her. “I feel like I can handle freezing,” Cockroft says. “I’m not going to do that. I’ve got used to the atmosphere. I’ve got used to having a lot of people watching me.
“There’s still a lot of pressure. People know my name now whereas they didn’t before London. I don’t want to let people or myself down but whatever happens, I’ll know I’ve put in a good race. I’m in good shape. There’s absolutely no reason anything should go wrong.
“I tell myself I’m the one who’s done all this work, I’m the one sat at this line. It really is all down to me. Even if everyone else has expectations, it’s nice people know my name. I’m on billboards across Britain. That is raising the profile of wheelchair racing and athletics and para sport.
“You just know every time you race someone new is watching, someone new is paying attention. That’s a really nice way to think about it and that new person might not know who you are, so that takes some of the pressure off if you’re helping someone fall in love with the sport. If you think of it like that then it’s actually a nice thing to be doing.”
One of the consequences of being so dominant is Cockroft has often been forced to deny suggestions she competes in the wrong classification, that she should be moved to a tougher field. The 24-year-old survived two cardiac arrests as a baby and uses a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy. She is dismissive of cheating claims, saying she can provide a doctor’s note as proof.
As one of the biggest names in disability sport, Cockroft never misses an opportunity to promote its cause and she is optimistic about the future.
“I do think progress has been made. I don’t think I’ll ever believe enough progress has been made. There are still a lot of things where we are not equal to our Olympic counterparts. Disabled sport is still not easy enough to access. There’s not enough support for equipment.”
She is encouraged by her rivals’ youth. Kare Adenegan, a 15-year-old from Coventry, ended Cockroft’s seven-year unbeaten run by pipping her in the 400m in London last year. Alexa Halko is a 16-year-old American who won two silvers at last year’s world championships in Doha. She also broke the 800m world record in July, only for Cockroft to regain it 10 days later.
“They watched London and decided they wanted to give it a go,” Cockroft says. “If that’s not legacy four years on, I don’t really know what is. The success was worldwide. More can always be done. There always need to be more funding, more commercial sponsors, more kit sponsors. There needs to be more interest. But it has improved.”
Cockroft, who will defend her 100m title on Saturday, will have extra motivation in next Friday’s 800m final after naming her race chair Tink in memory of a friend who died last year. Tahlia Banks, whose nickname was Tinker Bell, was a friend at university.
“She had cystic fibrosis,” Cockroft says. “After a double lung transplant we lost her. She was only 20. It’s pretty young to lose a friend but hopefully it will be a nice way to remember her.
“We were the only two disabled students on my course. We formed a bond and helped each other because I was taking time off for athletics and she was taking time off to go to hospital and plan her transplant. We created a bond because we always helped each other catch up and made sure one of us was in class if the other one had to ask what was going on. Going back to uni is going to be really tough when she’s not there.
“Uni is tough for anybody but when you’re going through what she was it’s going to be really difficult so I hope I just made it a little bit easier for her. I’m grateful I knew her and had the chance to be her friend.”
Tahlia would have turned 22 on the day of the 800m final. “She’ll be on my mind that day,” Cockroft says.” It will be a pretty emotional day but hopefully I can do her proud.”
