A pricey para-cycle was stolen from a northeast garage earlier this week and now an elite athlete’s dream of competing at the Canadian championships in August may be in jeopardy.
Kas Duong is preparing for the Canadian Para-cycling Championships but fears she will have to forego the competition after her three-wheeled racer was taken from her Abbeydale home.
“I was just about to go out to go cycling so I was going in to change, get my stuff ready, I came out and it was gone,” said Duong.
The theft happened sometime between Sunday evening and Monday afternoon and the bike cannot be replaced in time for the competition because most of its parts come from Europe.
“So it's not something I can just go to the bike store and grab, it's actually a process in getting it here to Canada,” she said.
Duong says the bike would be useless to anyone else because all of the controls are specially designed to accommodate her limited mobility.
The bike is not covered by insurance and Duong hopes someone sees it and returns it to her soon as she only has about a week left before she'll have to pull herself out of the national competition in Quebec .
She has set her sights on competing at the Paralympics and hopes to return to training soon.
“I really don’t care who took it or why they took it or what the incentive was, I just want it back so that I can start riding and training again,” she said.
The Alberta Bicycle Association says it’s not unusual for high end racing bikes to be stolen but it is rare for specialized para-cycling bikes to be taken.
