The night before Poppy Maskill won ParalympicsGB’s first gold medal of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, she only had three hours of sleep.
The 19-year-old Alsager swimmer left her maiden Games as Britain’s most decorated Paralympian of the summer with a staggering five medals, including three golds and one world record to her name.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Maskill, with the teenager immediately forced to throw her usual competition routine out of the window on her first day after a lack of shut-eye ahead of her opening race.
But it turns out the secret to a 100m butterfly world record lies in having a bad night’s sleep, as Maskill roared to a new standard of 1:03.00 to clinch her maiden Paralympic title at La Defense Arena.
“My main memory of Paris is the 100m fly because it was my first Paralympic final, my first Paralympic gold and my first world record,” she said. “I was going in to try my hardest and see what happens since you never know. But I had only had three hours’ sleep before it.”
Unable to get her full eight hours in, Maskill turned to her father Ben to ease her nerves in Paris. Ben admitted that he inherited a fresh bucket of parental stress himself after receiving a phone call from his eldest daughter at three in the morning the day before her Paralympic debut.
However, Maskill showed no signs of letting that affect her on the day, instead putting her head down and giving her parents the memory of a lifetime.
“She phoned me up at half-past three in the morning the night before saying that she couldn’t sleep so I was quite nervous for her,” he said. “I was trying to tell her to relax and she did well in the morning but she’s a big sleeper.
“When she’s tired, apart from being mega grumpy, you can see that her performances dip. She went out quite fast which is quite normal for her, but that final 15m was the most stressful moment in my life. I didn’t even realise it was a world record until afterwards I was cheering so hard.”
Maskill, who received SportsAid funding between 2020 and 2022, first took to the water at six months old as part of a parents and toddlers class. Ben himself used to be a swimmer so was keen to see all three of his daughters learn and Maskill quickly began to prove her strength in the pool, topping county, regional and national podiums at a young age.
“I started club swimming when I was really young with my sisters, I wasn’t great though,” said Maskill – who benefitted from support through Aldi’s Rising Stars programme with SportsAid in 2022.
“But when I was 12 I got all of my Cheshire times which no one else in my club had achieved. It really pushed me to be more competitive. That led to me getting classified for para swimming and from there I began going to junior national championships.”
Ben added: “I was a swimmer as a teenager and I was reasonably good. I used to be able to beat Maskill in a race but she’s too good for me now.”
‘Too good’ almost sounds like an understatement for Maskill who raced in her first major international meet aged just 17, winning a full set of medals at the 2022 World Para Swimming Championships in Madeira. Add that to one gold, three silvers and a bronze from the 2023 World Championships in her home pool of Manchester and Maskill’s rise to swimming fame has been stratospheric.
But it is success that didn’t just appear from nowhere. Maskill’s family noted that the support of SportsAid funding throughout her career has been fundamental in ensuring she could reach the levels she has both in and out of the pool.
From ensuring there was always a state-of-the-art racing suit on competition day to giving her the opportunity to set up a temporary pool in her back garden to train during the COVID-19 pandemic, SportsAid funding has been the base behind her rise.
“I definitely would say that I wouldn’t be where I am today without SportsAid, it’s helped me a lot in little ways that led to massive things in my career,” she said.
Ben added: “During Covid, Maskill was able to get Backing The Best funding through SportsAid and so we were able to get a temporary pop-up pool in the garden for her to train and gym equipment for the conservatory.”
“She wasn’t classed as an elite athlete so even when elite swimmers could go back to training, she couldn’t, so it kept her fit. It was incredibly helpful and kept her in the game when she could easily have stopped.
“Then race suits are £300 each, goggles are £50 and that’s without travel to competitions and entry fees. SportsAid took the pressure off that.
“Suits only last about six swims before they start to degrade so she used to have to make it last a whole year but SportsAid helped us get more so they could be the best standard.”
Maskill, who was named in the top 10 for SportsAid’s One-to-Watch Award in 2022 after her World Championship success, is now one of the most celebrated names from the Paris 2024 Paralympics.
And if five medals and a world record was not enough for the swimmer, Maskill also had the privilege of being named as the Closing Ceremony flagbearer for ParalympicsGB alongside para taekwondo athlete Matt Bush.
It was an honour the teenager never expected to be granted in her lifetime, never mind at her first Games and summed up the incredible journey she has been on over the past few years in the pool.
“The Closing Ceremony was unreal, it was a really great opportunity that I never thought I would get,” she said. “They invited me to go back up on the stage to dance with the DJ and some of the French athletes as well at the end. It was really nice.”
SportsAid’s annual One-to-Watch Award is kindly being supported by Aldi in 2024. The top 10 for this year’s Award will be revealed in November with each of the athletes receiving cash boosts and special in-person visits at their training environments to celebrate their achievements.
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