Relay success provides a sweet taste for Sugar in Berlin
Laura Sugar finally struck gold at the World Para Athletics European Championships and insisted there was no sweeter feeling than succeeding alongside her British team.
The Saffron Walden sprinter helped make history as part of the first 4x100m universal relay team to win a European medal.
Joining up with Zac Shaw, Sophie Hahn and Nathan Maguire, the unique event sees two male and two female competitors of varying disabilities take part in a relay, ranging from visual and limb impairments to cerebal palsy and wheelchair racers.
Sugar took up the second leg as the British quartet breezed to the line to take gold, the country’s 20th of that colour in Berlin and their 50th overall in the very last event.
For the 27-year-old this was a third medal of the meet following both 100m and 200m bronze, delighted to end on a high note with less than two years to go until the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
“I think this new event is fantastic,” said Sugar, who was born with talipes, meaning her foot was turned in.
“We are a team; we are obviously on the track as individuals normally, but we are all one big team so it is amazing to finish off with the relay with girls and boys and with all disabilities so it is fantastic.
“It’s been a strong week for the team, we knew we would be up there with the French but we were quicker than what we were in the heats which was fantastic.
“We knew that we would be level with France in the first and second legs, my job was to keep the gap the same and I knew that Sophie (Hahn) was going to go out there and boss it.
“My job was to take as much out of the French team as possible and we did that quite well.”
British Athletics works alongside UK Sport and the National Lottery to support the delivery of success at the world’s most significant sporting events, principally the Olympic and Paralympic Games. They do this via the funded initiative, the World Class Programme, one part of the British Athletics pathway.
