Wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft takes spousal rivalry to new levels

By Ben Hart, Sportsbeat

'Hurricane' Hannah Cockroft is so hardwired to win that she even challenges fiancée Nathan Maguire to duels at home.

The Halifax star, 31, has made wheelchair racing her own for the last decade, seizing seven Paralympic golds, 14 World Championship titles and five world records.

She has made a sizeable contribution to the 214 Olympic and Paralympic medals won by British track and field athletes since National Lottery funding began in 1997.

Few have been quick enough to keep pace with Cockroft on the track but husband-to-be and fellow wheelchair racer Maguire – a T54 wheelchair racer who scooped silver in Tokyo – revels in putting her reflexes to the test.

“We're both incredibly competitive,” she said. “Around the house everything is a race. Nathan will always walk two steps ahead of me just so that he's winning in life somehow, but I always like to remind him that I have more medals in the cupboard.

“We’ll do silly things like who can get up and get a drink quickest from the kitchen or who can then drink that drink quickest.

“It’s just ridiculous little things which I think people watching just go, you two are mad.”

Cockroft has been overcoming challenges for as long as she can remember.

Shortly after she was born, Cockroft suffered two cardiac arrests which left her with brain damage. As a result, her hips were weakened and her legs and feet were similarly affected, but that didn’t stop her dreaming big.

She recalls: “At three years old, I wanted to be a ballerina, not the best career path for a girl that could barely stand up! Following that, pop star was a strong favourite along with an actress or princess.”

It was not until Year 8 that Cockroft realised there were opportunities for wheelchair users to pursue a career in sports.

“My PE teacher, Mrs Daniel, managed to get the local wheelchair basketball team to come and do a demo in school and the rest is history really,” she said.

“Had she not invited the team in that day, I might never have found a pathway into wheelchair sports.”

Fast forward seven years and Cockroft was a Paralympic champion. It was just after London 2012, with her first Paralympic gold medals in the bag, that Cockroft and Maguire met for the first time.

The pair met again ‘properly’ in the lead up to Rio 2016, with Maguire on the relay team with Cockroft’s training partner Richard Chiassaro and they grew closer from there.

Maguire, who won relay silver in Tokyo and gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, is hoping to hit the same heights as his betrothed.

But Cockroft senses the 26-year-old is on the cusp of cracking the T54 category.

“Nathan has not been in the sport for as long as I have so I definitely have experience over him, but I think watching him, especially over the last three years, he's really been breaking chunks off, getting closer and closer to those medals that he really wants,” said Cockroft, who along with Maguire, is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme and will feature in Path to Paris: Paralympic Dreams, which airs on August 25 and is a project from Channel 4 and British Athletics, supported by The National Lottery.

“I think because we have a World Championships before the Paralympic Games, that’s going to be a huge confidence builder for Nath.

“He has it deep within him. I think he can win some medals in Paris; it's going to be tough; they are such close races, anyone could come first or eighth, but that makes it exciting.

“I know that if he makes the right decisions on the day, then he can definitely cross that line first.”

If Hollywood was writing their script then the Paralympic power couple would toast to a successful summer at their post-Paris wedding and the former jests that she’s only interested in a golden groom.

“If he doesn’t bring home a medal I might not marry him,” she joked. “Whatever happens, our wedding will be a massive celebration and I'm not wishing my days away, but I can't wait.”

National Lottery players have transformed athletics in the UK, with more than £300 million invested since funding began, supporting both grassroots sport and elite athletes. A new documentary - Path to Paris: Paralympic Dreams airing on Sunday 25th August at 4:55pm on Channel 4 - follows five British athletes as they prepare for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games and offers a unique insight into how National Lottery players support them on their journey.