Ultimate trust is powering Para triathlete Alison Peasgood and her guide Brooke Gillies at Paris 2024.


Competing in the visually impaired category, the communication between the two has to be incredibly strong, with their good friendship helping matters.


But it was a bond that was tested when Dunfermline native Peasgood announced her pregnancy just a week after Gillies had moved down to Loughborough to become her guide.


Peasgood gave birth to her son Logan last August and has now qualified for her third Games while Gillies will make her debut in the French capital.


“I was happy for Alison, but it was also a shock,” Gillies said. “Because I had come from Scotland down to Loughborough and I wanted to go on this journey with her and I arrived and it was like ‘I’m pregnant, I’m not racing.’


“I had only been in Loughborough for a week. Luckily, I could still push myself and keep training and be better for when Alison wanted to come back, and I would still be around for when she wanted to get back on the tandem and get going again.


“I would still see her a lot, we would message and keep in contact, we’ve always got on as people and not just athlete and guide and I think that has helped a lot going towards this Paralympics.


“And when she was ready to come back, we just took everything as progression and went from one thing to the next getting better and better.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Alison Peasgood (@triali87)


“We knew what we wanted, and we didn’t know when we’d get there but we enjoyed the process of getting there.”


Peasgood and Gillies are two of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full-time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games.


Peasgood, 36, won silver in Rio before finishing fourth in Tokyo before she and Gillies joined forces for the first time in 2021.


A year later, the pair won world bronze before Peasgood began her maternity leave, with her due date the day of the Paris 2024 Test event.


Peasgood said: “I was worried because she had made the move, ultimately I knew that her making the move was an important part of her journey anyway, and it was.


“Testament to her, she has just gone away in that year and just got stronger, and she is a stronger athlete than when I left.


“She has taken that as a sidestep on her journey and become a better athlete from it. 


“If in that year we had just not been in touch, I think it would have been very hard because my whole life feels like it has changed and been turned upside down and if Brooke wasn’t understanding of those emotions and part of my and Logan’s journey as well and it would have been hard to keep that trust when I came back.


“I am glad we kept that bond together.” 


The close relationship now extends to one-year-old Logan, who Gillies will be looking out for along the punishing Paris course when the pair compete on 2 September to use as extra motivation. 


Peasgood’s husband Jack, is a coach with the British team and was responsible for tapping up Gillies as a potential guide for his wife after Tokyo. 


She explained: “Brooke had approached my husband who was working in the pathway in Scotland at the time to see if she could use facilities in Stirling. 


“She wasn’t on the programme so he couldn’t let her, but he was like ‘maybe she could be a guide’” 
Gillies chips in “I had totally forgotten about that and then the next time I see him, he has a tandem and I had never seen a tandem in my life, and so I went in a car park by myself and thought what is going on. 


“I’m still here so I must be all right.” 


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