Harsh reality

Hannah Cockroft is no stranger to success but, as she tells Jasmine Collett, the honours can't mask the financial difficulties faced by para athletes in pursuing their ambitions

- Jasmine Collett

Hannah Cockroft has become used to appearing on podiums. With nine Paralympic gold medals, multiple world titles and established as a dominant force in wheelchair racing for over a decade, she has long been recognised as one of Britain's most successful para athletes.

Recognition like a CBE, she says, was a small counterbalance, a way of being able to remind people that Paralympians are neither outside, or above, these issues. The reality of para sport remains stark. Since the high of the Paris Paralympics, where Cockroft earned two more gold medals (T34 100m & 800m), she has faced a drop-off in financial support.

"I've already lost every sponsor that I had in the Paralympic year," she says. "We've had our funding changed, so we only get one competition a year covered now. [For] everything else, we have to cover ourselves."