21 June 2010

Virgin Mini London Marathon winner Hannah Cockroft (coach: Peter Eriksson) recorded four new World Records in two days in the T34 category at the British Wheelchair Athletics Association (BWAA) International at Stoke Mandeville on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 June.

She got off to a great start when she reduced her own T34 400m World Record on day one, clocking 1:04.27 for victory.

It was yet another impressive performance from the 17-year-old Halifax athlete who first reduced Deborah Brennan’s previous world mark of 1:07.68 – set back in 2002 – by over two seconds at the UKA Disability Athletics Challenge meeting in Knowsley (Liverpool) in May.

“I really wanted to go out there and win it,” said Cockroft, who has also won the British Wheelchair Racing Association 800m title, in addition to achieving runners-up spots in the BWRA 400m and the BUPA Great Manchester 10k, this year to date.

“It was a very strong international line up and I’m really pleased to won. Conditions weren’t great because it was really windy, but with it being a 400m, we had a tail wind as well as a head wind.

“I’m now hoping to go even quicker,” she continued. “Training has been going really and prior to my race Peter reinforced some of the key things we’d been working on. We went through the starts which is something I’ve been struggling with and getting into a good racing position – it worked, so I think we’ll stick with it now.”

She did go quicker – but perhaps sooner than even she expected – when she reduced the existing World Record marks in the 100m, 200m and 800m on Sunday, clocking 19.35 (1.1m/s), 33.80 (2.0m/s) and 2:14.79 respectively to erase the previous times by Chelsea Clarke (100m) and Deborah Brennan (200m and 800m).

It was a disappointing weekend for Brennan who saw Cockroft’s name replace her own on the record books on three occasions.