Rising athlete Libby Clegg
In an exclusive interview with United Kingdom Athletics (UKA), Paralympian Silver Medalist Libby Clegg discusses her childhood beginnings in sport, disability, inspiring figures, as well as the highlights of her career.
Libby Clegg is legally classified as visually impaired due to an inherited condition known as Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy, in which the macula (the centre of the retina) is affected. But the 100m and 200m sprinter does not see herself as defined by her disability.
“I don’t think I face a lot of challenges,” says the T12 athlete. “Since I started running, and more recently since I moved to Loughborough (one of UKA’s National Performance Centres), it’s made me really confident. I think when I moved here I moved away from the disability stereotype and it really helped me.”
Clegg’s experiences in both disabled and non-disabled environments have allowed her to integrate herself into mainstream society, while giving her the knowledge to make that society more accessible for others. This allows Clegg to do a tremendous amount of work for the Royal Blind Charity and serve as a role model for the ‘Champions in Schools’ programme, which offers several workshops featuring some of Scotland’s best athletes. For Clegg, this work is crucial, given that there were not as many organizations available to her during her earlier years.
In fact, Clegg’s first experiences in competitive sport were in a non-accessible setting, when she began competing at a club in Cheshire at the age of eleven. The year after, Clegg began to train at Edinburgh AC when her family relocated to Scotland. During this time, Clegg joined the British Blind Sport which she reflects upon fondly.
“I raced in the Junior Blind Championships and I also did cross country, it was great fun,” remembers Clegg. “I really loved cross country. When you’re young it’s such good fun to run in the muck. I just enjoyed running in general and taking part in all athletics, it was great!”
Clegg would continue to carry the same kind of enthusiasm to earn her first international victory in 2006 at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Assen, Netherlands, where she won second place in the T12 200m run.
“I was only 16 and it was my first GB vest,” beams the proud Briton. “Katrina (Katrina Hart, T37 sprinter) had gone to the Europeans the year before and I just missed out, but it made me train harder and I ended up kicking butt in the Worlds.”
After this milestone, Clegg would go on to achieve two personal bests (12.51 and 26.16) at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games in the 100m and 200m races. Performing better under pressure, Clegg claimed her silver medal for the 100m, and now reminisces over the sheer vibrancy of the atmosphere in Beijing. “I was so ready for that 100m, but you’ve no idea until you’ve been there how much all of the attention takes out of you. We had a full stadium every day and it was incredible, the support we had out there was amazing,” she describes.
Though much of Clegg’s success can be attributed to her own resilience and determination, the athlete is quick to praise coach Tom Crick and guide runner Lincoln Asquith. Clegg states: “It’s hard to find a guide runner that suits. It’s a definite challenge; I don’t think that a former international runner would find it easy to take on, although I’d like to see them try! Lincoln is an incredibly good guide runner but he’s getting older and we can’t risk him getting injured. Mikael, Lincoln’s son, is getting trained to work with me at the moment. He’s really good with me and he’s run at a high level of competition so he knows how it works.”
With Crick, Clegg explains that she feels comfortable working with him and that her programme has changed for the better, focusing on the quality of her strength. Clegg believes that Crick’s expertise and her motivation, she will be ready for the podium at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
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