Nathan Ma H A European Championships medal is in the youngster’s sights
AVING only just turned 21, wheelchair racer Nathan Maguire could be forgiven for viewing the upcoming World Para Athletics European Championships as an experience building exercise. But after narrowly missing out on a medal at the Commonwealth Games earlier this year, the youngster is setting his sights higher than that. Selected for the T54 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m and 4x100m mixed relay, Maguire is eyeing a top-three finish or two. “My preparations have gone well, I’m looking forward to it and it’s going to be a great competition,” he remarked ahead of the action in Berlin.
“In Europe we’ve got some of the best racers in the world, so it’s going to be a tough one but it’s always good to gauge yourself against the best and hopefully I can come away with a medal – that’s definitely the aim. “I’ll be up against Marcel Hug, the Swiss racer who is amazing, Kenny van Weeghel from Holland, Leo-Pekka Tahti from Finland, and Britain’s Richard Chiassaro (pictured below), so it won’t be easy!” He continued: “Me and Richard train against each other a lot, so we can gauge ourselves from that. At the moment he’s a little bit quicker but I’m hoping that changes at the Europeans. “We’re always chatting and sending messages to each other about how our training is going and we go on a lot of training camps together. It’s not just every man for
Agilitymagazine | 12
