Five-time Paralympic champion Hannah Cockroft has admitted she may pull out of the rearranged Games if the coronavirus pandemic is not under control.

The Tokyo Paralympics would have been due to start on Tuesday had they not been postponed until August 2021 amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Cockroft, who was born in Halifax and received an honorary doctorate from Bradford University, is the reigning T34 champion over 100, 400 and 800 metres, wants to race in Japan but stressed her health would take priority.

She said: “If this is all carrying on in a year, I don’t know if I will go. I value my life more than a medal, everyone would.

“For Rio there was the whole scare of the Zika virus and some chose not to go to Rio and that’s sad.

“The biggest worry is the Games won’t go ahead at all. If it’s not under control it’ll be very difficult to put us in the village and ask us to push our bodies to the limit.

“I’ve been quite lucky, I don’t think I’ve got any underlying health issues, but I’ve got a lot of friends on the team who have had to be mindful of that. It will be unfair because we go there wanting to be the best athlete we can be.

“If you’re having to ease off training so you’re not getting ill, you’re not going to the Games at your best. I would hate to do that.

“I trust all the authorities involved that they’ll put us first and remember we’re disabled people and put our best interests at heart.

“I think the Games will go ahead, but I have to think that because I don’t know what I’d do if they weren’t going to.”

Cockroft, who is due to compete in the women’s 400m wheelchair race at the British Championships in Manchester in September, will leave it until the last minute to make a decision over her Tokyo plans.

The 28-year-old said: “I will train as hard as I can for as long as I can, even if there’s no guarantee of a Games.

“I wouldn’t want them to make a decision too soon if the Games weren’t going to go ahead, because everything is so up in the air. You wouldn’t want to get to the time of the Games and someone say, ‘Oh, they could have gone ahead’. That would be the worst.

“If it got to getting on the plane and I wasn’t comfortable that would be the day I decide. Whatever they decide they’re going to get backlash.”