Nathan Maguire - Aiming for European silverware

A European Championships medal is in the youngster’s sights

HAVING 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

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himself – we help each other and exchange ideas on how we could improve.”

Maguire certainly won’t be short on belief following his fourth place in the 1,500m on the Gold Coast in April. “The Commonwealths were amazing and have given me so much confidence,” he confirmed.

“Coming fourth – and only 0.13 seconds from a medal – really showed me what I can do. During the heat, me and Richard worked together and controlled the race. It was the first time I’ve felt so strong in a race against the big guys like Kurt Fearnley and Alexandre Dupont. “Then in the final I just tried to play to my strengths. I sat in, played it pretty well and finished strongly. Hopefully, I can go even better in Berlin.”•

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