British wheelchair athlete Mel Nicholls- who was part of the Great Britain team at London 2012 Paralympics- emphasised the importance of her partnership with Hartpury College:
“A long time ago I was a student at Hartpury and I’ve been involved
with them since 2012, they’ve been fantastic.”
The 43-year-old has moved away from the track events to now embarking on more endurance based challenges, with the facilities at Hartpury being extremely useful:
“Since coming away from the track and focusing on my ultra endurance, we’ve been doing a lot of lab work, testing where I am in my fitness and my goals, ensuring I’m ready to go on to big challenges”, said Nicholls.
“We’ve been doing lot of scientific monitoring, recording data and using that going forwards which has been really useful for myself.”
Nicholls, who won a silver medal at the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships believes the great team atmosphere is key to success:
“Having that backing and being part of a bigger team is brilliant.
“You’ve got your sport teams and Team GB where everyone is in place but having a team closer to home is really important.
“Hartpury have certainly played a big part in that.”
This was an expedition Nicholls enjoyed and didn’t want to end:
“I loved the Land’s End John O’Groats journey, it was better than I imagined.
“I didn’t expect the route I took to be as beautiful as it was, seeing all the
people and the countryside – it was absolutely fantastic,” said Nicholls.
“I expected when I arrived at John O’Groats that I would want to throw my bike in the sea and certainly not get on it for a long time, but actually it was the opposite.
“I was really sad because I didn’t want to stop cycling – It was wonderful but it just wasn’t long enough.”
Nicholls would like to replicate a similar expedition to last year’s challenge when the time is right and the Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted:
“This year was meant to be the next kind of step so hopefully we can get a bit more normality next year and I can carry on.
“I have a few ideas on the back burner and I’m just seeing where the world goes with it. At the minute it’s not a time to be moving around but I certainly want to continue.”
