Hannah Cockroft

Hurricane Hannah, Han, Rocketwoman, Pippi Longstocking [because she wears long striped socks and ties her hair in bunches when she races] (Facebook profile, 05 Jan 2021; Athlete, 06 Dec 2010)

Her family. (hannahcockroft.co.uk, 27 Aug 2018; passionatepeople.invacare.eu.com, 01 Jan 2018)

Her father, and Canadian wheelchair racer Chantal Petitclerc. (paralympic.org, 11 Oct 2015)

Her nails have to match the colour of her kit. She has lucky underwear and socks, and also eats jelly before each race. (hannahcockroft.co.uk, 27 Aug 2018; telegraph.co.uk, 10 Jul 2017)

"Just breathe and believe." (Facebook profile, 05 Jan 2021)

She was named World Female Para Athlete of the Year for 2020 by Athletics Weekly magazine. (athleticsweekly.com, 03 Dec 2020; hannahcockroft.com, 01 Jan 2021)

In 2019 she was named the Disability Sportswoman of the Year at the Leeds Sports Awards in England for the third time, having also won the award in 2015 and 2017. (hannahcockroft.com, 24 Mar 2020)

In 2019 she was named the Disabled Sportsperson of the Year by The Sporting Club in London, England. (Facebook page, 05 Jan 2021; hannahcockroft.com, 24 Mar 2020)

In 2017 she was named the Sportswoman of the Year by the British Sports Journalists' Association [SJA] and Great Britain's Disability Sportswoman of the Year at the Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year awards. In the same year she was also named Sportswoman of the Year by Disability Sports Yorkshire. (telegraph.co.uk, 06 Dec 2017; paralympic.org, 27 Oct 2017; hannahcockroft.com, 24 Mar 2020)

In 2016 she won the Sporting Achievement of the Year award at the Yorkshire Awards in England. (hannahcockroft.com, 24 Mar 2020)

In 2015 she was named the Paralympic Athlete of the Year by the British Athletics Writers' Association [BAWA]. (athleticsweekly.com, 13 Nov 2015)

In 2014 she was named the Paralympic Athlete of the Year by British Athletics. (uka.org.uk, 2014)

In January 2013 she became a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire [MBE]. Later that year she was also named the Female Paralympic Athlete of the Year by the British Sports Journalists' Association [SJA]. (paralympic.org, 28 Feb 2013; Facebook page, 05 Jan 2021; hannahcockroft.com, 24 Mar 2020)

In 2010 and 2011 she received an award for Paralympic Performance of the Year from UK Athletics. (Facebook page, 05 Jan 2021)

Her partner Nathan Maguire has represented Great Britain in wheelchair racing, including at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. He won one gold medal and three bronze medals at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, Germany. (SportsDeskOnline, 09 Oct 2019; sportindustry.biz, 20 Sep 2019)

To win two gold medals at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. (yorkshirepost.co.uk, 22 Dec 2019)

She has cerebral palsy after experiencing two cardiac arrests at birth that damaged two areas of her brain. She has weak hips, underdeveloped feet and legs, as well as problems with mobility and balance. "Doctors told my parents I would never be able to do anything my whole life and wouldn't live past my teenage years." (independent.co.uk, 25 Aug 2012; dailymail.co.uk, 24 Aug 2012)

MOVE TO CHESHIRE
In 2019 she relocated from Halifax to Cheshire in England, so she could be closer to her training base at Kirkby High School in Liverpool. The catalyst for the move was having to settle for silver in the T34 100m at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, Germany. "It definitely helped, not the living in Chester bit, but just having people to train with. I spent 12 years going round Spring Hall track [in Halifax] pretty much on my own, and it got to a point where you can't really challenge yourself. When you're training on your own you think you're going 100%, but actually you're going about 80%. When someone's next to you, it really pushes you that little bit harder. It returned a bit of the fun to the sport for me, made it a bit more social rather than just going to work, and showed me what I'd been missing a bit by doing those laps on my own in Halifax." (yorkshirepost.co.uk, 22 Dec 2019)

LONDON MEDIA EXPOSURE
She believes the 'Meet the Superhumans' advert used by the Channel 4 television company in Great Britain ahead of the 2012 Paralympic Games has been a double-edged sword for people with an impairment. "Ultimately I love the Superhuman idea, the concept of it is fantastic but it kind of got stretched out so much that it wasn't just about the Paralympians, it was about everyone in the disabled community. After London 2012 I had people approaching me in the street saying, 'My life is horrible now because of what you've done, people come and ask me why are you not the next world beater, why are you claiming benefits and not getting a job'. To have real people coming to you and saying that - we thought as Paralympians we were changing the world for the better but we actually made a lot of people's lives a lot more difficult. You know nobody looks at an able-bodied person walking down the street and goes, 'Oh that's the next Usain Bolt', but everyone looks at a person in a wheelchair or an amputee and goes, 'Why are you not racing against Jonnie Peacock?'" (skysports.com, 07 Nov 2019)

TELEVISION WORK
She hopes to work in television once her sporting career is over, and in 2018 she presented the British show 'Countryfile'. "I am just trying to grab the opportunities that I can and build as much of a network up as I can while still focusing on my athletics. What I found through thinking about the future was a new motivation to realise how lucky I am and how privileged a position I'm currently in. It's quite nice to have that distraction. It's quite nice not to be totally obsessed with the next championships that are coming up." (lovesportradio.com, 04 Mar 2019; yorkshirepost.co.uk, 26 Aug 2018, 12 May 2018)

OTHER ACTIVITIES
She has served on the Athletes' Advisory Committee for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England. (iwf.net, 21 Oct 2020)