Two Leeds alumni head to the Paris Paralympics as pre-race favourites for Team GB.
Para triathlete Claire Cashmore MBE (Linguistics and Phonetics 2011, Hon LLD 2013) competes in her sixth Paralympic Games in Paris. It will be her second racing in triathlon since making the switch from swimming.
She races in the PTS5 class (which includes athletes with mild impairment) and won a bronze medal in the event at Tokyo 2020. Claire will be aiming for gold this time around on 1 September.
Laura Sugar MBE (Sport and Exercise Science 2012) heads to Paris as reigning Paralympic champion in the para canoe sprint event. Racing in the KL3 class (which includes athletes with full function of their trunk and partial function in the legs), Laura is a multiple world champion and the pre-race favourite heading into the heats on 6 September.
Athletes made in Leeds
When Claire arrived at Leeds in 2008, she had just won a bronze medal in swimming at the Beijing Paralympics. She recalls heading out the door at 4am for early morning training swims as housemates arrived home from a night out. “They would ask me where I was going because the party had finished! That could be hard at times, but the team within the sports department were brilliant at supporting me.”
Further medals followed at London and Rio, before Claire decided it was time for a change. “I had quite a few tough years in swimming, and I just wasn't improving. I decided it was time to make the switch to triathlon.”
Claire has since established herself as a leading athlete in para triathlon and was the 2019 World Champion in the event – which involves a 750m swim, 20km bike ride and 5km run. After taking bronze in Tokyo, another close race for the podium is expected in Paris between US athlete Grace Norman, GB athlete Lauren Steadman and Claire.
All you can control is your race and the process to get there. If you do that, the outcome takes care of itself.
Laura Sugar was born with talipes, or club foot. Her parents were warned by a doctor that she would never be able to do sport – only they chose not to tell her.
Remarkably, by the time she arrived in Leeds in 2009, she was already an international hockey player for Wales. After realising her ankle impairment qualified her for categories in para sport, she made the switch to para athletics and secured 5th place in both the 100m and 200m races at the Rio Paralympics in 2016.
In 2018, Laura was talent spotted by British Canoe, and decided to take up para canoe. Laura quickly adapted to the technique and balance required to paddle, in part thanks to the years spent adjusting her stance and balance: “Because of my foot I don’t have the ankle movement, so a lot of my stability has to come from my hips,” she told Paralympics GB.
Laura heads to Paris as the dominant force in the sport having won numerous world championship gold medals and Paralympic gold at Tokyo 2020.
Further information
For more information, contact Ed Newbould, Digital Communications Officer at the University of Leeds, by email on e.w.newbould@leeds.ac.uk.