As one of the fastest women on Earth, champion sprinter Elizabeth Clegg is well used to coping with pressure. But when Great Britain’s hope for Paralympic gold in the women’s 100m race lines up at the starting blocks at the Maracana Stadium in Rio on September 8, it will be with some trepidation.
For the first time in a major competition, Libby – as she is better known – will be competing blindfolded. She admits it is frightening and like ‘falling forward into nothing’.
She suffers from the degenerative eye condition Stargardt disease and away from the track relies on a guide dog to get around.
As one of the fastest women on Earth, champion sprinter Elizabeth Clegg is well used to coping with pressure
The Paralympic silver medallist at London 2012 hasn’t had to wear a blindfold to compete before now, relying on her remaining peripheral vision to negotiate the track. But because of the category she will be competing in at Rio, she must cover her eyes to take away her remaining sight.
She says: ‘Leaving the starting blocks wearing a blindfold was scary. There’s no point half doing anything so I put full force into it.
‘But you get the feeling that you’re falling forward into nothing, and you have no concept of where the ground is. It made me feel sick at first.
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‘My guide and I are attached at the wrist with elastic strapping. He’ll talk to me all the way round so if I’m running in the 200m he’ll tell me when we’re coming out of the bend. He’ll keep me inside the lanes.’
Libby will compete in the category reserved for those with the most severe visual impairment, the T11 class, described by the International Paralympic Committee as for athletes with ‘no light perception in either eye… with the inability to recognise the shape of a hand at any distance or in any direction’.
She describes her own vision as ‘like looking at a pixelated computer screen or a scrunched-up firework – lots of bright colours squashed into my central vision. But I have some peripheral sight – barely any – and with what little sight I do have I was able to use to follow the lines on the track’.
Libby is pictured (second right) with his sister Felicity and brothers James (right) and Stephen
Libby previously ran in the T12 category, for less severe vision loss, but her sight has deteriorated in the past year. ‘Now I have to wear the blindfold – everyone in the T11 class has to, to make sure the playing field is level,’ she says.
The 100m T11 Paralympic champion, Terezinha Guilhermina of Brazil, makes a virtue of her blindfold, decorating it with sequins and embroidery.
However, Libby isn’t sure if she will follow her rival’s lead, saying: ‘I can’t quite decide but I’ve thought about something fun like a superhero mask. I might just ask for advice on Twitter.’
The 26-year-old is aiming to beat her personal best of 12.11 seconds, which is just 1.62 seconds slower than the able-bodied world record set in 1988. These are spectacular achievements – and Libby hopes her story will serve as an inspiration to all those suffering vision loss.
She says: ‘I never set out to be a role model, but I know people do look up to me and I hope it spurs them on.’
Libby wasn’t born blind but started to lose her sight from the age of nine due to Stargardt disease, a rare inherited condition that leads to the loss of central vision.
There is no treatment, and eventually she will lose her sight completely. She says: ‘I’m at the age where my sight should be stabilising but it’s still deteriorating. Things will never go black, but I don’t know yet exactly what I will be able to see.’
Libby’s two brothers, who also have the disease, are both Paralympic swimmers. James, 22, won bronze in the 100m butterfly in 2012 but is not competing in Rio, and Stephen, 20, who makes his Paralympic debut in Brazil, broke the world 200m backstroke record this year. Their sister Felicity, 24, is fully sighted.
Libby says: ‘It was quite tough on her when we were diagnosed because we all became boarders at the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh, a special school for the blind. She was left at home with no one to play with and missed us.’
Libby – whose boyfriend is judoka Paralympian Dan Powell, 25, who is also blind – began to excel in athletics at about the same time she began having problem with her sight.
‘I was diagnosed after I started to struggle to read the blackboard at school, but other than that I had a normal childhood,’ she says. ‘I went to lots of different clubs and did ballet and tap until I was 12. My brothers played football and swam and my sister loved horse-riding.
‘I fell in love with running the first time I was taken to an athletics club, when I was nine. I discovered that I liked being competitive.
‘I’m quite shy but running gave me a social environment without having to be too sociable. It was about two years before I won anything, but I really enjoyed the chase.’
Libby, who lives in Loughborough, had enough sight to run unaided when, aged 16, she won silver in the 200m at the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships. She says: ‘I started competing with able-bodied and disabled athletes. The clubs I was with, the Macclesfield Harriers and Border Harriers, really encouraged us to run together.’
She wasn’t keen on the ‘para’ label. ‘I always resisted registering as a para, just through being a stubborn teenager really. I didn’t want to draw attention to my disability and wanted to compete on my own terms. Then, when I was 16, I was doing a training session and my coach suggested he ran as my guide. We really clicked and I ran really well, so I decided to register.
Libby Clegg at The Guide Dog of the Year Awards at The Hilton Park Lane Hotel, Park Lane London
‘Then I went on to win silver [at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008] so I knew it was the right decision.’
But still Libby wasn’t ready to fully embrace her condition. She says: ‘A lot of blind people feel more vulnerable if they use a white stick, and I didn’t want a dog either because a dog would make me look more disabled.’
She got her first guide dog, Hatti, only in 2014. ‘I was nearly run over twice and I walked into a hedge because I didn’t see it. Then my dad said, “Think how someone would feel if they ran you over.” That’s what convinced me in the end.
‘I can’t see the kerb and electric cars are so quiet now. Hattie has stopped me from walking in front of one more than once.’
Despite a growing public understanding of disability – partly thanks to the Paralympics – Libby says day-to-day life still has its challenges. ‘People queue-jump because they think I can’t see them, or push in front of me when I’m getting off trains because they think I’m too slow.’
Libby, who recently qualified as a sports therapist, is planning for a future away from the track, but for now will keep on running and inspiring. She says: ‘There will come a time when I have to stop, but my sight won’t be the reason. For now, I love running and I’m going to keep going for as long as possible.’