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Hannah Cockroft now holds T34 world records in every distance from 100m up to 1500m after she improved the mark for the longest event in Nottwil, Switzerland, on Saturday.

On the second day of the World Para Athletics Grand Prix, the five-time Paralympic gold medallist clocked 3:50.22 in her first 1500m race since 2014 to break the record of 4:01.79 which had been set by her fellow Briton Mel Nicholls three years ago.

“That’s too far!” said Cockroft, who had earlier won the 100m in 17.40. “Mel’s time has stood for a long time and we knew I’d worked on a lot of distance in training, so it would be a good test of my fitness.

“The thought was that if I could hold a good speed over 1500m, I can hold an even better speed over 800m. So it is nice to hold the full set (of world records).

“I was holding a good speed all the way around and it was pretty consistent so it has given me a confidence boost heading back to the 800m,” she added. “Maybe I can push a little harder in that now.”

Cockroft also improved her T34 100m, 400m and 800m world records in Arbon the week before and in Nottwil on Friday the 24-year-old also clocked 1:56.71 for the second-fastest 800m of her career.

The day before had also seen Richard Whitehead in world record-breaking form as he clocked 23.01 in the T42/44 200m, improving his own T42 mark by 0.02.

“It is nice to break my world record again,” said the 40-year-old two-time Paralympic gold medallist. “I can have a go at that sub-23 time in London maybe.”

Whitehead also came close to the T42 100m world record with his time of 12.17.

Canada’s Brent Lakatos broke a fifth world record in 10 days, smashing Marcel Hug’s seven year-old T53 1500m record with a time of 2:51.84. Behind him, Britain’s Richard Chiassaro broke the T54 European record with 2:52.11.

Source: AW

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