Loughborough University student and British Paratriathlon Championships medallist, Nathaniel Costigan has had success in the PTVI classification after moving over from para-swimming in his youth.

The 23-year-old was selected for the British Paratriathlon Talent Squad in 2017, after early promise marked him out as a contender on the world’s stage. Originally, Costigan comes from a swim background, but witnessing paratriathlon’s debut in the Paralympics in Rio left a lasting impression.

“After the 2016 Paralympics, paratri became more prevalent and there was more advertising around it online, with more talent ID days and more competitions. It just got me interested in it. I’d never beforehand thought of running and cycling. I saw the opportunity and I’ve found it really fun ever since.”

Fuelled with inspiration and the drive to shift from one sport to three, Costigan remembers his first-ever triathlon: “It was the British Championships at Eton Dorney. It went better than I thought it would. I didn’t find it too stressful because I was doing it with a guide. I got to the end, and I wanted to do another one. I found it a lot more sociable than swimming was, because swimming you can’t talk to anyone!”, Costigan laughed.  

Finding a guide available to race and train with can be a long process for PTVI athletes, especially ones like Costigan, who is still at university and must find a new guide each year.

“It wasn’t difficult to find a guide I got on well with, it was just difficult to find someone to race with because there weren’t many people that were aware of guiding. But ever since I reached out to the North West regional clubs to put out a notice, I’ve had three or four guides since then. They’ve all been really nice and it’s a good experience for them and me to work with other people.”  

Along with getting to grips with three sports, Costigan also learnt the ins and outs of racing side by side with his guides. On the learning curve of getting comfortable with racing, Costigan shared: “It’s learning how to communicate in the way that I’d like to. It’s basically learning how to best communicate in a race situation and also understand the things that they like to do when they’re racing, to see if we can find somewhere in the middle where we’re both happy. Trying to improve and work on my communication skills, which I think have definitely improved.”

It's not only his sporting performance that has improved, Costigan has also developed skills that help him in his day-to-day life as a third-year accounting and finance student at Loughborough university.

“The organisation of having three sports and doing transitions, that’s definitely helped me outside of triathlon in situations where I’ve had multiple tasks. It’s helped me be less stressed about when situations change, because on race day when you do have last-minute changes or things not running to plan, I’ve had to overcome that and find ways of adapting. It’s helped me elsewhere, like in uni work.”

Being a two-time British Paratriathlon Championships medallist, Costigan has raced alongside some of paratriathlon’s best. He shared some of his most memorable moments: “The earlier races that I did are definitely memorable. Though they were less of a big event, it was me racing alongside Dave [Ellis] and Oscar [Kelly], who are quite high performing athletes. I like experiencing what they do for races and how they treat the pre-race build-up.

“Another more recent memorable one was last season in Swansea, when the event was at the same time as the World Series races. It was a super sprint tri that came down to almost a sprint finish, I think I was five seconds behind the person in front of me, it was quite memorable to be almost catching them!”  

Looking to the season ahead and beyond that, Costigan hopes to be able to continue progressing in the sport he’s grown to love, while making his first steps in the world of work as a new graduate.

“I’m hoping to do all of the races in the Super Series, I’ve got Llanelli coming up at the beginning of May. I’m hoping to achieve quicker times on my run leg because it’s definitely feeling stronger and quicker. Also, I’m hoping to get closer to Oscar - I’ve still got a bit to go, but I’m getting in the mix.

“Long-term I’d like to be able to get to a form of international race, that’s my biggest goal, and be up there for national champs. After uni, I’ve got a first job lined up doing something finance-related for a company that are very supportive of me doing training at the same time, so I’ll be able to fit in training with my work.”

Find out more about the opportunities available including how to get into paratriathlon here.