Adventures in Rio
Last week, I was at the Para-cycling Track World champs in Rio, working with a stalwart of the para-cycling scene and former minister of sport for Romania, Eduárd Novak. His first cycling Paralympics was Athens. But he reached out to me for support after a pretty poor World Champs in Glasgow last year, with age finally starting to catch up with him.
Of all the places I’ve been to coach, Rio has certainly been the most colourful. The time difference makes waking up early for once a possibility so I’ve been able to ride and run and see the sights. Day one I saw a swamp puppy (alligator), day two I saw a metre-long lizard while riding the Olympic TT course from 2016.
The fun of being self-employed at least means my boss (me) doesn’t confine me to the hotel like some of the nations have done with their riders. Clearly there are risks in Rio but as adults I think you should be allowed to assess these yourself.
Granted, there is a lot on GB’S plate with 29 riders and over 100 bike boxes (not all with bikes in) transported across the world, so their logistics manager has some serious work on their hands.
The racing has gone well here for Eduárd, a 22-second improvement in the IP from Glasgow and a lifetime PB in the flying 200m, and in the kilo. However, it’s not all perfect, it was difficult to witness his disappointment as he came off the track in the scratch, where he scraped 12th place. Unfortunately, with para-sports it’s not always the most even of playing fields; he pointed out at previous Olympics almost the entire C4 category had essentially the same disability of a lower leg amputation. However, some nations have realised that the reclassification of the riders is a more significant marginal gain. Eduárd is one of few riders in his category with his disability as some athletes without any leg impairment have
managed to get reclassified.