Hannah Cockcroft

Our columnist on relinquishing her world record and being a TV presenter

LOOKING back on the Müller Anniversary Games at the London

Stadium, Kare Adenegan has been building up to beat me on this scale for a while now. We’ve only raced together once this season, so deep down I knew she was going to beat me – I just didn’t expect her to break the world record and by that distance. The fact that she has done that is fantastic. For me, getting under 17 seconds has been such a barrier. Sometimes when you’re the person in the lead with no one to chase, you put this barrier in your head and you can’t get past it. I’m hoping that now Kare has done that it will take the pressure off me, especially heading into the World Para Athletics European Championships in Berlin.

I said from the beginning that I was going to have a quieter year and focus on different things. I’ve just turned 26 so it’s important to think about my future, and obviously Kare is putting my future into focus a bit quicker than I’d anticipated! It genuinely is great to see someone coming through. For ten years I’ve had comments like ‘you’re not in the right class’ and ‘it’s too easy for you to win.’ Now, with Kare coming through and taking that world record it just shows the work that’s gone in over ten years to stay at that top level.

Agilitymagazine | 14

It’s also proved a lot of things to me and set me a challenge. It’s a new motivation – I haven’t ever had to chase anybody, and it’s easier to be the chaser than the target.

I’m not completely ruling myself out of winning at the Europeans by any means, but I think it will be longer-term that we’re going to see better things from me. I know what’s possible and I know I can go quicker than that time. Berlin is going to be a completely different kettle of fish. London is a fast track whereas Berlin is going to be a very slow and windy track, which is very much like what I train on at home. Kare also had a lot of support in London from her family and her coach, whereas I was there on my own, trying to please sponsors and be around the public. That can be tiring. I won’t have a lot of those commitments to worry about at the Europeans, so it will be a completely different race – and a very interesting one. I’m looking forward to it and I’m sure Kare is too!

I’ve tried to stay away from social media since the Müller Anniversary Games because people just write you off straightaway. One race is just one race. I’ve been on top for ten years and then suddenly the media are reporting that I’ve been dethroned and that I’m a ‘has been’. If people can write you off that quickly after one race then I guess that shows how much respect some parts of the media have for athletes. I’m looking forward to getting out there and showing what I can do when I’m well rested and ready to go.

Away from the track, I’ve started working with BBC Countryfile - I’m one of their new presenters, which is so exciting! It’s been a long time in the planning and although the timing isn’t perfect I feel like it’s an opportunity that I can’t turn down. Going into the media has always been something I’ve wanted to do. I’ve had eight years of back-to-back competing and this year is one where I’ve needed to focus on what’s going to happen next. I did a TV presenting course in February and this has come off the back of it. I started filming recently and we’ve got a couple more slots of filming before the Europeans, so I’ll have to learn to multi-task in the hope I can get it all right! So many athletes get to the end of their careers and think ‘what now?’ I don’t want to be in that position.•