Canada’s first medal at the Paris Paralympics: Just weeks before the 2024 Paralympics in Paris, Canada’s first medalist struggled to hoist and diaper her son. Kate O’Brien of Calgary won the women’s C4-5 500-meter time trial bronze Thursday afternoon at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome. It means a lot, O’Brien said. I don’t know what to say about it.
The 36-year-old won silver on her Paralympic debut in Tokyo three years ago. Her 2017 velodrome crash brain injury worsened her dystonia this year. Her limbs spasm and contract involuntarily. Attaching clothes pins to buckets at Vancouver’s G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre to get her hands functional was difficult three months after the Paralympics.
O’Brien said that making the Games was huge. I didn’t know if I could ride a bike and make the team for the Games. Megan, O’Brien’s former track cyclist wife, and their eight-month-old son Robin watched her compete Thursday at the velodrome.
“My wife, Megan, said ‘You can do it. Why not try?”‘ O’Brien stated. My GF Strong physio said, ‘What you have is incredibly hard and sucks, but you can do this, so let’s try. What’s the worst if it fails? “Honestly, I wasn’t anticipating this. ‘I can’t control what others do,’ I said the previous few days. The last few years have been irreversible. What else can you do but race on the track?”
Art form
O’Brien averaged slightly over 48 km/h. Marie Patouillet’s 36.7 beat O’Brien’s 36.873 seconds with two riders left.
Briton Kadeena Cox, reigning C4 world champion, crashed within meters of the gate start after losing control of her bike. Caroline Groot of the Netherlands won gold in 35.566. Especially for sprint events, the first 20 or 30 meters is crucial,” he said.
“You must balance and observe where you’re going while putting out all this power. The C4-5 class includes riders with leg, arm, or trunk limitations who can ride a regular bicycle. The velodrome is maintained hot because less dense air speeds performance. It reached 29 degrees.
To return to the Paralympic podium, O’Brien exhausted her legs. It really just feels like there’s nothing left to give,” remarked. “The end is a touch hot. They do feel a bit like dead weights, and dead weights you’d really like to put in an ice tub.
Olympian in 2016
O’Brien represented Canada in the 2013 World Championship bobsled and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio as a track cyclist. She won gold and silver in team and match sprint at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto.
O’Brien’s tire exploded at Calgary’s Glenmore Velodrome in 2017, sending her into a pace motorbike. Among his injuries, O’Brien had a skull and brain fracture.
After biking again, O’Brien was diagnosed with post-traumatic epilepsy.
O’Brien won two world para-cycling championship silver medals in track’s time trial in addition to her Olympic silver and bronze.
O’Brien qualified fourth-fastest for Thursday’s final. After finishing 10th, Midale, Sask.’s Keely Shaw missed the final. Groot set a new C5 world record in qualifying in 35.390 seconds, beating her Tokyo Games record.
On Sept. 4, O’Brien races the women’s C4 time trial in Paris on road bikes.
