World Para-Athletics Championships: Hannah Cockroft, Maria Lyle and Aled Davies win gold in Dubai - BBC Sport
Hannah Cockroft sets a new world record to win her fifth consecutive T34 100m title at the World Para-Athletics Championships.
Last updated on .From the section Disability Sport

Hannah Cockroft set a new world record to win her fifth consecutive T34 100m title at the World Para-Athletics Championships as Maria Lyle and Aled Davies also won gold on a medal-filled day four for Great Britain in Dubai.

Lyle won her first individual world title in the T35 100m, while Davies won gold in the F63 shot put.

Andrew Small won a silver and Harri Jenkins and Kyron Duke took bronze.

Britain have now won 10 medals in Dubai.

"I don't have any words," Cockroft, now an 11-time world champion across all distances, told BBC Sport.

"I've worked really hard this year on my start, knowing that it's Kare's strong point, so I had to make the weakest part of my race the strongest too.

"I'm so glad it has paid off."

A rare rainy day in Dubai led Cockroft to joke she "might as well have been in Yorkshire".

She added: "Sub-17 still felt like it was going to be next year's goal. It still felt a little out of my league. I haven't pushed that quick ever, so I'm not sure how I just did it.

"I think I had settled for silver in my head, so to come out on top, I actually got the medal I wanted."

In Sunday's evening session, Scotland's three-time Paralympic medallist Lyle dominated her race from the moment the starter's gun sounded, crossing the line in 14.62 secs.

The 19-year-old, who recently spoke of her battle with anxiety, won 4x100m gold in Doha in 2015 but admitted a first individual global title had been a long time coming.

"I'm so happy," she told BBC Sport. "There were a few stumbles at the start of the race so to pull off a performance like that it means so much. It gives me confidence going into the Paralympic year.

"This is my third Worlds so it's been a number of years of just learning from previous experiences, not only physically but mentally, and learning how to cope with the challenges that come along with a championships.

"I think it's just growing up, experiencing stuff and just actually enjoying the sport for once. I think people take things too seriously but [the key is] if you remember you're just running from one line to another."

Welsh Paralympic champion Davies, who recently became a father for the first time, won his fourth consecutive world title in the shot put with a 15.32m effort.

"This was the hardest competition of my life," the 28-year-old told BBC Sport. "I wanted to show my little girl how it is done.

"I've won every accolade, I'm world record holder, but this competition was about regaining my confidence, and we'll take that to Tokyo now."

Five-time Paralympic champion Cockroft now holds the world records for every T34 distance from 100m to 1500m.

Adenegan, 18, set the previous world best - 16.80 secs - in beating Cockroft at last year's Anniversary Games.

Cockroft admits she "fell out of love" with the sport in 2018, a year in which she also won 100m silver behind Adenegan at the European Championships in Berlin.

"I was really distracted last year, I'm not ashamed to say that I had fallen out of love with the sport a little bit," she said.

"I didn't really feel motivated to be at the European Championships, but Kare winning there was a real eye-opener for me, it really woke me up.

"To see her elation at winning, it made me realise maybe what I had lost. I didn't enjoy winning anymore, I felt like I had to win.

"It really made me get my head down this winter, work hard, and I made a lot of changes.

"I moved out of Yorkshire, I moved to a new training group, I'm still with my coach but I changed a lot of my life to be the best athlete I can be."

Adenegan, who took up the sport after watching Cockroft at the London 2012 Paralympics, set a season's best of 17.49 secs on Sunday.

"I came here thinking 'what if I could be world champion?', and I went into the race with that mindset," she said.

"I said I was going to give it everything I have got, and whatever happens, I've got to be happy. Hannah was the better athlete today.

"I believe that you don't lose, you learn. I've learned a lot from this race.

"Coming here as the world record holder, I did have some pressure. My world record has gone now, and that gives me motivation to work harder and try and get it back."

In the T33 100m final, Paralympics bronze medallist Small, 26, won silver with a performance that saw him lead for the majority of the race before Kuwait's world record holder Ahmad Almutairi came through to win by more than 0.6 seconds.

European champion Jenkins, 23, placed third behind his team-mate but was emotional after the race, telling BBC Sport: "I can do a lot better than that."

Duke, 27, set a new world record of 14.19m in Leverkusen in June but the F41 shot put in Dubai saw the gold medal won by Uzbekistan's Bobirjon Omonov with a new championship record of 14.03m.

"When new people come in and throw big distances, it affects you," said the Welshman, who managed a best effort of 13.82m.

"I'm going to go back to the drawing board and learn from it. I still have my world record.

Elsewhere, Hannah Taunton and Luke Sinnott finished fifth in the women's T20 1500m and T63 long jump finals respectively, while Ben Rowlings placed sixth in his T34 100m heat, missing out on a place in the final.

London 2012 Paralympic bronze medallist Ola Abidogun, earning his first British vest since 2014, reached the T47 100m semi-finals, which take place on Tuesday.