World sprint champion Cockroft eyes double gold at Paralympics

The 20-year-old wheelchair sprinter from Halifax has the opportunity over the coming fortnight to elevate herself into the realms of star billing in a summer when the stage is already crammed with sporting superstars.

Double world champion in the T34 100m and 200m sprints, Cockroft has the infectious nature that makes her a natural interviewee for the media.

She has talent and star quality, is a self-confessed chatter-box, and in a disabled sport that made Tanni Grey-Thompson a Dame, she has the chance to really make a name for herself.

All this just four years after she took up wheelchair sprinting.

There was already a spark in the former Calderdale College pupil, a determination to not let cerebral palsy – which she was born with – define her.

Cockroft tried wheelchair basketball, swimming and seated discus at school, before she was persuaded by Ian Thompson – the husband of Tanni Grey – to try wheelchair racing.

That was only a few months before Beijing.

She arrives in London as the double world champion in the T34 100m and 200m. She owns the world record in both distances, and also in the 400m and 800m.

In all, she has broken world-best marks 21 times over the last four years.

Cockroft is almost too talented for her own good, for her accomplishments have been greeted with scepticism.

T34 – the category in which she competes – is for brain-damaged and cerebral palsy athletes. Cockroft can walk short distances unaided, albeit with a lot of difficulty.

Criticism, though, is something for the sceptics to worry about. She has faced it all before.

Cockroft said: “I walk with a really bent back. On my first day at school a guy went ‘Oh, you’re nice and straight, aren’t you love.’ I’m not really bothered by it. I get quite a lot of comments about my classification.

“My disability is brain damage. At birth, I had two cardiac arrests that damaged two parts of my brain, left me with weak hips, deformed feet, deformed legs, problems with fine motor skills, problems with mobility and balance. I guess because I’m so chatty and I don’t present as brain damaged, people don’t really understand it, but if they saw me do simple things like tie my shoelaces, I can’t do it.”

Cockroft is targeting only success at the London 2012 Paralympics.

“It’s my first Games and I’m still young, so I kind of want everyone else’s expectations to go down a bit,” she said recently. “But I’m aiming for double gold. You don’t go to the Paralympics to win bronze.”

It is easy to forget that inside this phenomenally gifted and determined athlete, beats the heart of a wide-eyed young woman, who lives life to the full.

“My coach is always asking why I’m eating chocolate, telling me that I don’t need to drink, stuff like that,” she said. “I get to travel to all these cool places and have all these really cool experiences that none of my friends get to have.

“But at the same time, I’m looking at them going out at night and I do get envious.

“But then, none of my friends are ever going to go to Australia (competing).”

There are other medal prospects from Yorkshire at the Paralympics; Leeds cyclist David Stone, Sheffield swimmer James Crisp, Lothersdale archer Danielle Brown and Leeds swimmer Clarie Cashmore among them.

All have the capacity over the coming days to entertain us with their feats and amaze us with their stories. Cockroft is likely to do all of the above.