Track cyclist Kate O'Brien claims Canada's first Paralympic medal in Paris

Canada's Kate O'Brien shows her bronze medal after the Women's C4-5 500m Time Trial final race, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024 in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, outside Paris. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Thibault Camus

Canada's first medallist of the 2024 Paralympic Games struggled to lift and diaper her son just a few weeks before stepping onto the podium in Paris.

Calgary track cyclist Kate O'Brien earned a bronze medal in the women's C4-5 500-metre time trial Thursday afternoon at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome.

“It means a huge amount," O'Brien said. "I don’t even know to describe it.”

The 36-year-old was a silver medallist in her Paralympic debut in Tokyo three years ago.

Dystonia stemming from her brain injury in a velodrome crash in 2017 became acute this year. She's had involuntary muscle cramping and contractions in her limbs.

Part of her therapy at Vancouver's G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre was attaching clothes pins to buckets to get her hands working, and that was a challenge for her just three months out from the Paralympics.

"Making these Games was a big, big thing," O'Brien said. "There were moments where I didn't know if I would be able to ride a bike and make the team for the Games."

O'Brien's wife Meghan, a former track cyclist, and their eight-month old son Robin were at the velodrome Thursday to watch her race.

"Meghan my wife, it was her saying 'you can do it. Why not try?'" O'Brien said.

"My physio at GF Strong said 'what you have is really hard and sucks, but you can do this, so let's just try. What's the worst that can happen if it doesn't work out?'

"If I'm being totally honest, I wasn't expecting this. The last few days, I was like, 'I can't control what other people do. I can't undo or redo the last few years. What can you do but go out on the track and go as fast you can?'"

O'Brien did with an average speed of just over 48 kilometres per hour.

There were two riders remaining when O'Brien's time of 36.873 seconds was bested by Frenchwoman Marie Patouillet's 36.7.

Reigning C4 world champion Kadeena Cox of Britain wasn't able to control her bike off the standing start out of the gate and crashed within metres of the start.

Caroline Groot of the Netherlands then took gold in a time of 35.566.

"Especially for sprint events, that first 20 or 30 metres is massively important," O'Brien said.

“You have to have this level of balance and then watching where you’re going while trying to put out all this power. It’s a bit more of an art form than I’d like to admit.”

The C4-5 class combines cyclists who have impairments that affect their legs, arms, or trunk, but can still ride a standard bicycle.

The velodrome is kept hot — less dense air makes for faster speeds — and the temperature in the building reached 29 degrees.

O'Brien drained all the power she had in her legs to stand on the Paralympic podium again.

"It really just feels like there's nothing left to give," she said. "They're a little bit on fire at the end.

"They do feel a bit like dead weights, and dead weights you'd really like to put in an ice tub."

O'Brien was a bobsledder for Canada at the 2013 world championship and a track cyclist for Canada in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

She won team sprint gold and match sprint silver at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto.

O'Brien crashed into a pacing motorbike ahead of her when her tire blew at Calgary's Glenmore Velodrome in 2017.

Among multiple injuries and broken bones, O'Brien suffered a fractured skull and brain injury.

When she was able to ride a bike again, O'Brien was diagnosed with post-traumatic epilepsy.

In addition to her Olympic silver and bronze medals, O'Brien is a two-time silver medallist at world para cycling championships in track's time trial.

O'Brien switches to road cycling in Paris when she races the women's C4 time trial Sept. 4.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 29, 2024.