The personal bit

Favourite Colour: I would have to say green as I am a proud Irishman.

Favourite Music: I am the kind of guy that would listen to all sorts of music, but if I was to choose one type it would be light rock; bands I like, include the artic monkeys, pigeon detectives and many more.

Favourite cartoon: I would have to say good old Noddy, loved him since I was a wee boy.

Hobbies: Playing a bit of basketball when I get the time and playing Xbox 360.

Michael McKillop

Name: Michael McKillop
D.O.B: 27/1/90
Club/County/Country: St Malachy’s AC, Belfast/ Co. Antrim/Ireland.
Occupation: Student (Belfast Metropolitan College).

Personal Profile

I would say that I am an all- round runner. I enjoy running on the country in the winter, but I love stepping onto the track in the spring. I regularly train 6 days a week, running up to 50 miles during the winter and also including 3 quality sessions. I am comfortable running 8k cross country down to 1500m / 800m on the track. Looking forward into my athletics career I would see myself becoming a middle distance athlete that can hang with the best, no matter what the surface.

Ambitions

Having already won two European Paralympic silver medals as well as silver and gold World Paralympic medals and breaking the world record for the T37 800m, I would love to go one better by winning Paralympic gold in Beijing and also to be the first T37 athlete to go under 2minutes!

Personal Bests

  • 800m: 1.57.2 (2007)
  • 1500m: 4.08.5 (2007)
  • 3k: 9.21.2 (2005)

Championships/ Competitive achievements:

  • Double European paralyimpic silver medallist. (2005)
  • World paralyimpic 1500m silver medallist. (2006)
  • World paralyimpic 800m champion (2006)
  • World record holder for the T37 800m (2006) 2:02.13
  • Ulster schools able bodied senior boys 800m champion (2007)
  • Ulster and Northern Ireland Junior men’s able bodied 1500m champion (2007)

Best Race

Running the World Paralyimpic championships in Assen Holland. The Irish support was awesome making it even better when I won T37 800m title and at the same time broke the world record for my category. 

Worst race

Running the Celtic International cross country in Dublin 2005. It was my first international vest and  I was all pumped up for it; but by half distance I was tailed off toward the back of the field, which I didn’t like. But  a few days later a series of blood tests confirmed I was very anaemic, so at least I could understand why I had run so poorly. Didn’t take away the embarrassment though!