AUSTRALIA’S Paralympic cycling hopefuls will train at Broadford’s State Motorcycle Sport Complex in the lead up to the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
The Paralympics road race and individual time trial events will be at motor racing circuit Fuji Speedway, creating some unique challenges.
Cycling Australia head of performance solutions for paracycling Keren Faulkner said bringing the team to Broadford would help them train for the former Grand Prix circuit.
“It’s a lot more technical with more bends and turns and more elevation than road races and time trials often have in paracycling,” she said.
“We chose Broadford because it had some of the similar features as Fuji Speedway and we want to get some of our athletes with a range of impairments and types of bikes really practicing their skills on that type of circuit.
“We’ve got athletes with a range of impairments, including neurological impairments like cerebral palsy, upper limb and lower limb amputation, and using hand cycles or tricycles.”
Ms Faulkner said Cycling Australia is encouraging people to come down to the track and check out our future Paralympians in training.
“There’s not much opportunity to see paracyclists compete and train in Australia,” she said.
“Most of their major competitions are overseas so we encourage any people locally to come around and have a look and see how paracyclists train, how hard they work and engage a little bit and understand what the sport’s about.
“We would love to see more people appreciate and understand our sport and help us to build a bit of a local fan base for when the games are on.”
Some of the athletes who will be training include Rio gold medallist Carol Cooke, World Championships silver medallist Hannah MacDougall and Track World Championships gold medallist Darren Hicks.
The Paralympians will be at the State Motorcycle Sports Complex on Monday, April 15 from 11am to 5pm and Tuesday, April 16 from 9am-3pm.
A gold coin donation is encouraged with all donations going towards helping the team get to Tokyo.