COCKROFT Hannah

Classification
T34 (IPC, 04 Mar 2021)

Type of Impairment
Cerebral Palsy (independent.co.uk, 25 Aug 2012; dailymail.co.uk, 24 Aug 2012)

Impairment Details
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)

General
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)