Paralympic champion Jonnie Peacock will be “ready to fight,” competing for gold in the Paris 2024 games and aiming for a third gold medal.
The 31-year-old from Britain clinched gold in London 2012 and Rio 2016 but claimed a joint bronze in the T64 100m event in Tokyo three years ago.
Lately, Peacock has been plagued by injuries and problems with his technique and performed fifth in the Worlds of the previous year.
But he was quoted saying that he is “ running better than I have run for the last four years.”
Asked what his goal was in Paris, he told in an interview: Oh, it was super sparkly; get this—it is made of silver.” And yes, when one has managed to bag a gold medal, other medals, such as the silver ones, don’t seem really exciting anymore. They are always disappointing. It seems that no brand can develop a truly satisfactory version of the platformer.
What is genuinely powerful is what Johnson says to the camera, ‘I feel like I can fight again… That is something that is really important for me. The last few years I’ve been off balance, right on the ragged edge of my technique, where if I have to push a little bit more, I lose it. Not any more.”
The Games are set to start with an opening ceremony on Wednesday in Paris, with the T64 100m final scheduled for Monday in Stade de France.
‘The more pressure, the faster I run’
He was among the many stories of the London 2012 Paralympics, where at T44 100m he scooped a gold when he was still a teenager, having set a world record of 10. 85 seconds.
But a second Paralympic, two world and two European crowns arrived in 2017, then golds have been clad in what he calls a torrid phase.
Referencing the Tokyo Games in 2021, he added, I’m still angry from the time when I was just three years old. It becomes my chance to correct the mistake that I made. I will be going there, getting down to doing the fighting and I expect that all my competitors will be ready because there will be a showdown.
’This is my fourth time and it is also my fourth time participating in the contest.’ It’s true that for every other athlete in that field, it will only be their second time, which indicates that winning is not easy. I also know what it is like to work with 80,000 people going mad.
Whether they will be going quite as mad for me remains to be seen, but I am super excited for that, and I am really looking forward to getting into that stadium and feeling what it’s like.
To me, pressure is motivation; the more pressure you apply, the faster I perform. Pressure, I am aware, is not something that all my competitors enjoy.
Peacock is getting the feeling that the Paralympics are being promoted significantly when he is traveling through Paris. The promotion for the Paralympics definitely feels like it is back to normal after the financial issues that made Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 happen without spectators due to the COVID pandemic.
‘It is nice to drive around and see Paralympians on posters. It is like being in London all over again,” he said.
The ticket sales themselves appear well; maybe there will be the first sold-out stadiums and much noise.
The Briton has already thought about life after Paris and coyly plans to be racing at a fifth Paralympics in Los Angeles 2028.
“But I’ll still be here; you’re not getting rid of me yet,” he said. ‘This year is actually the first year I’ve felt good for a while.’
“I won’t be going away yet; there is much more in my body; I have had enough. I feel like we’re only just getting back into where we left so you’ll see me in LA; touch wood.”
