"The closer we get to it, the more and more we have to think about other people."
Thursday 19 March 2020 19:40, UK
Five-time Paralympic champion Hannah Cockroft believes calling off this year's Tokyo Games "might be the best news" for athletes.
The Team GB wheelchair racer said competitors need to accept it would be the right decision to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) are still expecting to go ahead with the Olympics on July 24, but complaints over their decision to carry on have led to talks being held with athlete representatives this week.
"If you'd have asked me two weeks ago I'd have been like 'yeah, it's going to be totally okay, it's going to carry on'," Cockroft told Sky Sports News, "but the closer we get to it, the more and more we have to think about other people.
"My boyfriend's vulnerable to it, we've both got disabilities and more importantly I want to think about my grandma - I want to make sure that she's okay."
"I think that's the bit that worries me now and that's the bit that makes me think maybe we need a put a stop this now and just say, you know what? The Paralympics, the Olympics, are not going to happen this year.
"Obviously as athletes this is our livelihood, this is what we put four years' work into. As much as we don't want to hear that news, maybe it would be the best news to hear right now."
With advice changing regularly on how the public should protect themselves during the coronvirus outbreak, competitions are increasingly being postponed and training centres closed.
The British Paralympic Association say it is carrying out a sport-by-sport risk assessment to identify concerns, but that preparation and qualification for this year's games will be "severely restricted for the foreseeable future".
"We remain in regular dialogue with the International Paralympic Committee during this difficult time and it is clear there are significant concerns being raised by athletes globally," it said in a statement.
Cockroft is trying to stay positive, despite her own local track facilities being shut and training being disrupted.
"We're supposed to be flying out to Switzerland in May for our qualifiers - that's now been cancelled," she said. "Currently our European Championships are still going ahead in Poland in June, so I think most of us are still trying to search for information if that's going to go ahead.
"But really just trying to find some motivation to keep going and to make sure that everything we're trying to keep moving is worth it."
