Heartache again for Donohoe after road crash double blow
ALISTAIR Donohoe missed out on a medal but won the hearts of Australia after one of the most courageous performances at the Tokyo Paralympics.
Robbed of the gold medal at the 2016 Rio Games when Yehor Dementyev collided with him and knocked him off his bike metres from the finish of the road race, Donohoe suffered an even crueller fate this time.
Donohoe crashed again when the same Ukrainian rival slipped and fell on the slippery Fuji International Speedway circuit and he unsuccessfully tried to swerve past him.
Then a few minutes later, Donohoe lost control and tumbled to the bitumen again, falling leading pack.
Bloodied and bruised, the Aussie got back in the saddle and chased ever harder, eventually catching up to give himself an outside chance of winning the 92km race.
“I felt like Steven Bradbury there, like skating on ice. It was so random,” Donohoe told Channel 7.
“I got around him and suddenly I’m on the ground, too. Get back up, get back on, come up a hill, slip again.
“These wet conditions bring out patches of oil on the racetrack, and you can’t predict them.
“So after that second lap, I was so skittish around the corners just to be sure that I didn’t crash again. Had way behind the
I been luckier it would have been a different race, I was feeling so good.”
But it wasn’t to be. While his heart and mind were willing, it was Donohoe’s body that ultimately let him down as the effect of playing catch-up caused him to start cramping severely.
As hard as he tried and as much as he wanted to, Donohoe couldn’t keep up with the leaders in the final stages of the race. And he resigned himself to again missing out on an elusive gold medal, after winning two silvers at Rio and a silver and bronze in Tokyo in his other events.
“I went soul-searching there for a while. I dug so deep because you’ve got to be in it to win it and you’ve got to spend your biscuits,” he said.
“I had the energy, but once you start cramping there’s nothing you can do. You’ve got to back off to your pace. I couldn’t go with it with the accelerations.”