Paralympic Legends

OK I admit it, the Paralympics finally got to me.

I don’t like the idea that the athletes should be considered brave or any other patronising term, but the simple strength of mind to suffer a setback on of the magnitude of some and go forward, finding the humour in the situation is inspiring.

So, what got me? Well I think it was the emotion that was clear from the co-presenter of the excellent The Last Leg Channel 4 Paralympic magazine show as he talked about his interview with an obvious hero of his, Alex Zanardi. Zanardi used to race on the Indy Car circuit until a huge crash. He was T-boned by another car, shearing both his car and his body in half.

Proving that once a racer you’re always a racer, and despite being initially pronounced dead, he was competing in the hand-cycle event, which he won by nearly half a minute.

If you want more of this type of story from the cycling, then Ned Boulting has a piece in Metro that will undoubtedly give you something to think about.

The cycling continued yesterday at Brands Hatch with the big story being Sarah Storey who rode a race that made a statement rather than strictly racing her competitors in the C4-5 road race. She annihilated the field, catching the men’s event that had gone out two minutes ahead of her and showing not just that she’s a great Paralympian, but that she really has the form that made her in the running to be an Olympian too with the women’s pursuit squad. Her winning margin of 7 minutes 22 seconds equates to nearly 5KM ahead of the second placed rider over a 64KM course. Her medal equals Tanni Grey-Thompson’s 11 golds.

Less inspiring words came recently from the editor of Richmond and Barnes magazines. It’s excellent to know that his attitude to cyclists has been changed by the London games, but shocking to hear him suggest that he’d rather see cyclists dead. I’d suggest a boycott, but who actually even reads the magazine anyway? Even with that sort of driver on the roads, I don’t think that this is really a sensible solution. I would love to see someone try this. Although not on a bus I’m on, please.

That race in Spain is still on, although I’m in the camp that suddenly found it less interesting after Contador soloed to an unbelievable win after the shortest two year ban ever. However, service should continue, so I can tell you that yesterday’s stage came down to a sprint as expected on a real flat stage. Perhaps with their focus now off Froome in the GC Sky were able to set up a sprint for Ben Swift. Swifty nearly pulled off this one, but was beaten by a matter of centimetres by Bennati on the line, meaning that it’s a Grand Tour in which Sky seem destined to come up just short in all areas.

Finally, bikeradar are looking for interesting bike blogs on Twitter using the hashtag #bikeblogs. I suggest you send over any you particularly enjoy…

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