Libby Clegg

Formerly a keen ballet dancer, Libby took up athletics aged 10, first competing in middle distance and cross country running before taking up sprinting.

She joined the Macclesfield Harriers Athletics Club in 1999, bursting onto the international scene aged 16 at the 2006 World Championships in Assen, the Netherlands, when she won a silver medal in the T12 200m.

Libby made her Paralympic debut in Beijing in 2008, winning a silver medal in the T12 100m. Later that year, she was awarded third place in the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year.

At London 2012, Libby won her T12 100m heat in a world record time of 12.17 seconds to qualify for the semi-finals. However, in a competitive field, the record was broken in each of the next two heats and reduced to a time of 11.91. In the final, Libby ran a time of 12.13 to set a new personal best and take the silver medal.

In her second event, the T12 200m, Libby ran a lifetime best of 25.10 to come second in her heat, but she did not progress to the finals.

Crowned Commonwealth Champion in 2014, Libby had to miss a number of major competitions through illness and injury. She was reclassified as a T11 sprinter in 2016 and went on to set a world record in the T11 200m at July’s IPC Athletics Grand Prix Final, the same venue where she took to the podium in 2012.

In London, Libby was also joined by younger brother James, who was selected to ParalympicsGB to compete as a swimmer, winning bronze in the 100m Butterfly (S12).

Keeping the family tradition, her brother Stephen was selected to represent ParalympicsGB in swimming at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, where he won a silver medal (S12 100m Butterfly) and two bronze medals (S12 100m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke).

Libby began working with guide runner Chris Clarke in February 2016 and the pair claimed T11 100m and 200m gold at Rio 2016.

Injury sadly ruled Clegg out of the London 2017 World Championships, then the following year she suffered a double blow as first her regular guide Clarke was ruled out for the season, then replacement Tom Somers also picked up an injury just before the 2018 European Championships.

In April 2019 Clegg and her partner Dan Powell became parents to son Edward; the Scot was back training by the summer with hopes of competing at the World Championships later that year. Clegg made the start line but was disqualified in the semi finals of the T11 200m.

At the Bydgoszcz 2021 European Championships, Clegg won gold in the T11 200m.

Three months later at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, Clegg was part of ParalympicGB’s silver medal-winning quartet in the 4x100m universal relay. She announced her retirement from Para-Athletics in Tokyo on 2 September 2021, after bowing out of the T11 200m heats.

Clegg switched to para-cycling in 2022, where she made her international debut for Team Scotland at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, piloted by Jennifer Holl in the Women’s Tandem B 1000m Time Trial, where they finished fourth.

She finished the year with a world title to her name, this time piloted by Georgia Holt, and it was in the Team Sprint B event with James Ball (pilot Steffan Lloyd) where they topped the podium in Quentin en Yvelines, France.

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2022 UCI Para-Cycling World Championships, Quentin en Yvelines, France

• Team Sprint B: Gold

2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games

• 4 x 100m Universal relay: Silver

2016 Rio Paralympic Games, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

• T11 200m: Gold
• T11 100m: Gold

2012 London Paralympic Games

• T12 100m: Sliver

2008 Beijing Paralympic Games

• T12 100m: Sliver

2013 IPC Athletics World Championships, Lyon, France

• T12 100m: Sliver
• T12 200m: Sliver

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