‘I’m pet-obsessed Paralympian with canine named after Rio Games and 6 tortoises’
A two-time Paralympian has enlisted a tortoise sitter to take care of her six pet reptiles in the course of the Paris Games.
Claire Taggart is a world champion within the sport of boccia. In boccia, athletes throw, kick or use a ramp to propel a ball onto the courtroom with the purpose of getting closest to a ‘jack’ ball. The animal-obsessed 29-year-old from Northern Ireland started her menagerie along with her canine Rio, a border collie named after the primary Paralympic Games she attended. Now it incorporates six tortoises.
“They live at my parents’ house,” explains Taggart. “We have Gary Lightbody, as in Snow Patrol, Mr. Noddy, Fiyero and Elphie from the musical Wicked.
READ MORE: ‘I like the chaos’ – The junior physician and armed forces officer focusing on Paris 2024 Olympics
Learn extra
Sky Sports is bringing you 500 dwell soccer video games to look at, as properly entry to Cricket, Golf, F1, Boxing, NFL, NBA and extra throughout eight devoted channels. Sky Sports is the solely strategy to watch all of the motion this yr.
£22 a month
Sky
“Rosie is a rescue and I got her because she was terrorising the neighbour’s Yorkshire Terrier. And then my final tortoise is Biffy, and he is the biggest one, he is bigger than an A4 sheet in shell!”
Usually Taggart, who is the women’s world No.1, is accompanied to boccia competitions by her dad while her mum stays at home with the pets. Taggart will go to Paris 2024 as a gold medal favourite and help is at hand, so her parents can join her.
“We have organised a tortoise sitter for Paris,” she says. “She’s going to come up and go to tortoise school for a few days with me, before I decide whether I’ll leave them with her.
What is the biggest number of pets you have ever owned? Let us know in the feedback part
“But it is a challenge, they are not a pet that can be left just to their own devices. They need to be heated and fed and water changed daily. They are really enjoyable animals to have. If we didn’t have my mum staying at home, I don’t know how we would manage, but that’s just another element to my life.”
Taggart is a reluctant star and says she would shun the limelight even when she turns into a Paralympic champion within the French capital. “I feel like sometimes I am a bit of a tortoise,” the Larne native says. “So, I poke my head out from the shell to place some stuff on-line or no matter, however then I instantly retreat.
“And I’m snug and glad in my home and issues like that, however I do not need the highlight. So perhaps in a previous life, I used to be a tortoise, or perhaps I’m now. But I feel they’re easy creatures and I do actually love them.
Taggart grew to become world No1 in 2022, a title she nonetheless holds. She provides: “Whenever we go to a competition, we’re given a number to wear on our arm or leg, which tells us where we are in the ranking. And consistently going to four events last year and getting that number one every time, I find it really challenging.
“I have had the blessing of being world number one for over a year now and adjusted to the fact that people are going to be chasing me.”
Taggart is one in all over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme. “Without The National Lottery’s funding, I wouldn’t be able to do boccia, I wouldn’t be able to travel and compete and represent Northern Ireland or GB without the funding,” she stated. “I, and I know that the rest of my teammates and our staff and assistants, are really grateful for it.”
National Lottery gamers increase greater than £30million every week for good causes together with important funding into sport – from grassroots to elite. Find out how your numbers make superb occur at: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk #TNLAthletes #MakeAmazingHappen
