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Australia’s Para-cyclists have backed up their success on the velodrome with one gold, two silver and three bronze, from day one of road racing at Fuji Speedway.
Darren Hicks, 36, got the Australian road campaign underway with a gold medal performance in the individual time trial C2.
“I’m so lucky that my best is Paralympic Champion, hooley dooley, it’s incredible,” said an emotional Hicks after the victory ceremony. “The medal’s pretty special but it’s the anthem that got me – that’s pretty incredible,”
Hicks was 1:32 faster than his nearest rival at the end of 24 kilometres but had to wait for other riders to finish to confirm his win.
“I don’t think when I crossed the line I was actually sure I had won but I knew I had ridden a really good race.”
Track pursuit gold medallist Emily Petricola collected the silver medal in the C4 time trial, a mere 9.3 seconds off the gold medal time of USA’s Shawn Morelli, and 1:31 ahead of third placed team-mate Meg Lemon.
“That 9.3 seconds will haunt me for a little bit but at the end of the day she was a better athlete today and went out with a completely different, in fact opposite strategy to me and it paid off for her,” said the 41-yea-old who already has eyes for the next Paralympics.
“Oh yes, I’ll be winning in Paris you can write that one into your diary right now. – I’m pretty motivated and you know with disappointment, you do learn a hell of a lot more from any loss than you do from victory.”
The bronze medal was a welcome one for Lemon who was fourth in the pursuit last week.
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Carol Cooke, 60, was gunning for her third straight time trial crown in the 16km women’s T1-2 but she couldn’t match the pace of German Jana Majunke who completed he distance 32 seconds quicker than Cooke.
“I realised that Jana’s half my age, so I’m pretty happy, pretty stoked,” said Cooke.
“If I wasn’t going to win I could think of nobody better than her and I have to be pretty happy with silver because I gave it everything I had.”
In the 32km C5 time trial Alistair Donohoe took on a strong men’s field and came through with a bronze medal.
“You always pick apart time trials, could have gone a bit harder there could have done this corner a bit better but at least I know, across the finish line, I had done all I could do,” he said.
He added that COVID travel restrictions made it hard to know what to expect.
“I know I’m going well but you expect everyone to be in top form so to come away with the medal in such a red hot field, I think that’s just relief in itself.” he said.
Paige Greco was the first gold medallist of the Paralympic Games last week and on Tuesday she contested the time trial C1-3 and the C3 rider rode strongly to claim bronze.
In the hand cycles competition the heat and course conditions took their toll on 2012 silver medallist Stuart Tripp in the H5 class.
“Some days you’re the hammer and some days you’re the nail,” said Tripp after finishing eighth, four and a half minutes off the winning time, “Today was a nail day.”
In the H4 time trial final Grant Allen finished sixth, while in the C3, David Nicholas finished eighth.
Former Australian infantry soldier and military policemen Stuart Jones had hoped to perform at this best on his debut at the Games but mechanical issues in the closing stages saw him lose time and eventually finish fifth, 28 seconds off the bronze medal.
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On Wednesday (1 September) Grant Allen and Stuart Tripp will be back in action for the road races.
Schedule of starting times for Australian cyclists:
09:30-11:30 JST (10:30-12:30AEST) Men’s road race H5 – Stuart Tripp
14:15-16:15 JST (15:15-17:25 AEST) Men’s road race H4 – Grant Allen
Gennie Sheer – Paralympics Australia
Posted: 31 August 2021
