Q: London 2012 is getting closer, how does that make you feel?
It’s very exciting. It’s such a huge opportunity; we’re building up to something that will be once-in-a- lifetime. I think it’s important to keep it in perspective – it’s just another race - although there will be a lot more people paying attention because it’s in London. It matters that we achieve there more than anywhere else, but ultimately we need to keep it realistic and not overly-pressured, because if you add too much pressure then it could all go wrong.
We’ve got some very strong, solid building blocks between now and then, so achieving those will be another stepping stone before the big event. I guess like any goal, if you break it down into small portions, and focus on getting those small portions correct, then you’ll arrive at the big event in a much more sound mind and hopefully with a lot of confidence from the success you’ve had along the way.
Q: Do you think you’ll be selected for both the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games?
I can’t really control anything other then my own performance so I’m very concentrated on being the best and fastest athlete I can be across all of my five events. Then with it [Olympic cycling] being a team event and having such strength in depth in the UK within women’s team pursuit I just have to hope I’m inside the top three or four riders come selection. There are about eight or nine girls that are very much in the hunt for those places and for me, with the Paralympics perhaps four weeks later, there are so many different things to balance. I’m just concentrating on training and competing to the best of my ability and then everything else should hopefully take care of itself.
Q: What’s your take on the different challenges faced by Olympians and Paralympians?
What is often missed to everyone, whether they compete in the Olympics or Paralympics, and because there are fewer people in the world of disability, the majority of people assume overcoming the disability is the bigger challenge people will face. When in fact, everyone’s challenges are so personal. The things that I find difficult someone else might find easy and vice versa, regardless of my disability. So the challenges that athletes face are no harder or easier than anyone else because challenges are so personal. It’s completely wrong to say these Paralympians are overcoming these amazing challenges because of their disability and Tanni [Grey-Thompson]’s right – it does detract from the performances that they’re doing.
Ultimately the Olympians have faced equal challenges but in different ways. It’s been documented that people have lost parents in the run up to the Games. In some ways that’s more difficult than being born with a disability. So for me the challenges are there and we need to move towards the focus of the challenge of proposition and the challenge of a training schedule and how to balance that with normal life, like trying to see your family and friends, eat correctly and all those other challenges that athletes face regardless. That’s what makes their performances extra special rather than almost ‘there, there darling aren’t they brave and courageous’, which has been certainly the case over the last 20 years and when I came into the sport. The older swimmers that I was being looked after by said whatever the press do never they should never call us brave and courageous just because we’ve got a disability.
Q: The first stage of London 2012 Paralympic Games ticket sales seemed to go well, how else can you get people more enthused about the Paralympics in general?
I think it’s down to a mixture, people tend to read as much online now as they do in newspapers. Try to get more coverage on television during times when people are more likely to be watching and also making events more publicised so that people will go and watch.
In cycling we’re guilty of not publicising the events to the point that we’re going to do a National 10-mile Time Trial but there will be very little in the press or the local area to advertise the fact the event is on and we are racing on open roads. We need to advertise to communities that these events are taking place not just to allow people to enter and compete themselves, but so people can go along, see what it’s about and become more enthused about the sport that’s happening all around them.
Maybe if we all advertise what’s happening in local communities then people would start to be involved in sport and realise it’s not just for the elite few, it’s for everyone.
Q: How much does luck come into the choice of sport?
I learnt to swim through my school swimming club and I was the fastest swimmer in the school by the time I was seven - that didn’t go down too well with the older kids. It was very much a community set up which was fully supported by the school. We did it on a Saturday afternoon and because they were so keen on sport we had a lot of school sport clubs. My headmaster was very keen on everyone doing as much as they possibly could. We’d go to adult table tennis leagues from being nine and ten years old which was rather amusing when we turned up to working men’s clubs playing table tennis as primary school kids. Then we’d beat them and go home. We had a real community sense in quite a small village as well.
Everyone had the opportunity to do sport if they wanted to. I played netball and then went onto the county netball team when I was at high school - every sporting opportunity I had came from school. So, when I hear about school sports taking a back seat and changing I think it’s very sad because without school sport I wouldn’t be the athlete I am and I certainly wouldn’t have thought about changing sports, because it was the number of sports I did as a kid that gave me the confidence. I’m a huge supporter of school sport and it always irritates me when people say ooh it’s a non-competitive sports day. You would never have been allowed to say that at my school, we all wanted to beat each other.