Multiple Paralympic champions is no stranger to success, but honors cannot mask the financial difficulties faced by athletes to pursue their ambitions
Hannah Cockroft has become accustomed to appearing in podiums. With nine Paralympic gold medals, multiple world titles and established as a dominant force in wheelchair races for more than a decade, he has recognized the pulmonary leg as one of the athletes to stop for the athletes to de Great Britain. But there are some honors that still manage to cut, even for some with their history.
Earlier this year, the 32 -year -old received a CBE for sports services. It was not the first trip to Buckingham Palace, having granted an OBE after Tokyo 2020. It was also a repeated meeting with Princess Ana, who greeted Cockroft with a smile of knowledge and a fast comment. “Oh, you have returned again,” said Princess Royal.
“It was really great,” says Cockroft. “I get my obe from her after Tokyo and in the end she said:” Well, I think I’ll see you again, so see you soon. ”
So memorable that it was the stage, Cockroft is the first to point out that such praise or tasks are not expected, only for some with a cabinet full of medals.
“People think they hope to get one, and it is definitely not,” he adds. “You are not on the track thinking:” I will win gold medals to get this recognition. ”
When the letter arrived confirming his CBE, Cockroft called his father immediately. But beyond personal joy, he saw something bigger in the award, a moment of rare and necessary visibility for people disabled in Great Britain.
The moment was significant, given the growing restlessness between the disabled communities on proposing government changes in the Personal Independence Payment System (PIP). Around 3.6 million people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with long -term physical or mental conditions currently receive PIP.
“It is a leg such an insecure moment,” says Cockroft. “As Paralympic, you are not seen as one of those people who get the benefit of a pip … but all the little things that affect the disabled people affect us, and you can feel feeling you.”
Recognition as a CBE, he says, was a small counterweight, a way of being able to remember people that Paralympics are Neinder outside or superior, these problems. The reality of sport remains marked. From the maximum of the Paris Paralympics, where Cockroft obtained two more gold medals (T34 100m and 800m), has faced a fall in financial support.
“I have already lost all the sponsors that I had in the Paralympic year,” she says. “We have changed our financing, so we only have one competition a year covered now. [For] Everything else, we have to cover ourselves. ”
This has had real consequences. Competing International is exhaustive (Cockroft estimates that it costs £ 1000 only to enter a single race in the Parathletics Grand Prix in Switzerland, and, as someone constantly needs a team to remain competitive, the bill maintains the increase in the rite.
For some who have dominated sport for more than a decade, that hard reality.
“Name an Olympic champion without sponsors,” she says. “I can’t name one. And I won nine gold.”
Cockroft admits that this lack of recognition and support weighs a lot, not only for itself, but for what it indicates to the next generation of athletes.
“If I can’t pay it, they can’t definitely pay it,” she says. “And that’s where sport is falling.”
Since London 2012, or seen as the peak of Paralympic visibility in the United Kingdom, athletics for a lifelong battle to maintain the impulse. Cockroft remembers the zumbido after the games, the big crowds, the financing and attention of the media that felt the change of play. But he also remembers how fast he vanished.
“There are 10 steps forward in a Paralympic year and then 11 steps later,” she says. “We are fighting to bring new people to our sport, we are struggling to open opportunities.”
Among his biggest concerns is the reduced number of careers and the lack of money from prizes or professional paths for athletes for para para. While the rest of the athletics world debates a necessary change for sport, Cockroft says that many athletes are still struggling for a seat on the table.
“We just want a small part of what the capable body boys have,” she says.
For Cockroft, the way forward is base. She believes that, unless a real investment is made in bringing disabled children to early sport, the next generation of champions won there. That is why she has helped launch an important association between England Athletics, Citroën, and her athletics clubs after school that raised the personal foundation of the beneficial organization of the beneficial organization in England.
“These are children who, for any reason, are not accessing the sport,” says the personal ambassador of the Personal Foundation and Sustainability Ambassador for England athletics. “There is no financial pressure, there are no expectations. Literally it means that children can try a new sport. That is incredible.”
It is a mission rooted in your own experience. When I was a child, Cockroft was excluded from physical education classes due to security groups. Her first opportunity in competitive sport was thanks to a passionate teacher of Physical Education in Secondary School who helped her find an athletics club.
“Not all children have that support,” she says. “This association ensures that they do it.”
In spite of all the challenges that Cockroft has faced, next to her side is her husband and her wheelchair Nathan Maguire, whose recently in the London Marathon, where Diens finished, added a new dimension to her shared sports life. Cockroft admits that it is more difficult to see their careers than to compete.
“It’s still on its way. I’m trying to stay on top,” she says. “But seeing his hunger reminds me why I started. He always pushes me to try new things.”
“It is still on its way. I am trying to stay at the top,” says Cockroft, whose main objective for next year is the World Athletics Championship in September in New Delhi. “But seeing his hunger reminds me why I started. He always pushes me to try new things.”
