“The Guinness World Record,” he concludes with a surgeon’s sincerity. “And drinking a mug of beer. I love drinking beer.”
Alongside parents Matthew and Hannah, we talk in the kitchen of their east Yorkshire farmhouse, gradually morphing into a makeshift training camp. A treadmill, rowing machine and standing bike squeeze into one room. A three-metre exercise pool must go down as one of the great Facebook Marketplace purchases.
This means his speech patterns can be difficult to follow. Reading and writing are challenging, but he can remember number plates from years ago and tell you what day of the week any date fell on.
Having first met him in 2019, he is unflinchingly kind and positive and joyous, polite and honest to a fault. Whenever his sister bought him illicit McDonald’s during busy training periods, he would invariably snitch on himself.
There was the sense swimming, a lonely, obsessive sport, had taken this deeply sociable young man as far as he could go. Having long loved open water and the outdoors, triathlon was a logical next step.
“He trains with Yorkshire Wolds every Tuesday, and he’s now got a running family,” Matthew explains. “They’ve changed my view of humanity. A brilliant bunch of people.”
Over 40 per cent of people with an intellectual disability exercised for less than 30 minutes per week in 2018, while 70 per cent said they wanted to be more active. Outside sport, half of British families with an intellectually disabled child live in poverty, while 94 per cent of people with an intellectual disability are unemployed.
“Actions speak louder than words,” Matthew, 49, says. “That’s very apt with Gus. He’s got a superstrength.”
Angus and father Matthew, also his swimming coach (Photo: Special Olympics)Receiving no government funding, they largely rely on donations and sponsorship to function, but can currently only help around 10,000 of the 1.5m people with intellectual disabilities in the UK. Jack Grealish is an ambassador, as is Eilish McColgan, who ran with Angus in the Olympic Park in February.
“You couldn’t ask for a better mate, a better partner in crime,” Matthew explains. “He’s non-judgemental, always supportive, very in tune with your feelings, how you are, your moods. He knows when you’re thinking about something, he’s really attuned to that.
“The more intensity you put into it, the more he seems to thrive on it. He understands the reward from doing the work. He never whinges, he’ll just say ‘that was tough’.”
“[Angus’s autism] manifests itself very much in a need for routine, quite ritualistic, obsession-based, but not too much,” Matthew explains. “When he has an interest in things, he really has an interest in it.
Leckonby finishing the Middlesbrough half-marathon (Photo: Supplied)
The furthest he has run is 35km, but he finished the Middlesbrough half-marathon in just over an hour-and-a-half earlier this year. The aim on Sunday is 3h 30m.
Longer term, a spot at the 2027 Special Olympics World Games in Chile is a dream. There is even talk of an Ironman attempt, and more records. Away from sport, he is training to become a lifeguard, and works for his parents’ French furniture and upholstery business.
“For someone with a young child with a diagnosis, I’m not going to sugar coat it, it’s hard,” Matthew explains. “You’re going to have days when you don’t know which way to turn, you’re going to have days where it’s brilliant and you don’t understand why.
“Don’t listen to every demand, but when it comes to a passion and an interest, you run with it. You learn what this interest is and become as passionate about it as they are.
“It’s going to take your life in completely different directions to where you thought it was going. But that’s life anyway.”
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