THUNDER BAY - Local Paralympian, Robbi Weldon, is aiming for a podium finish next month in Rio, and hopes it will match the gold she brought home from the 2012 London Games.
Weldon and teammate, Audrey Lemieux, will be competing in the 25 km time trial and the 95 km road race during the Rio Paralympic Games, which will be taking place between Sept. 7 and 18.
“My goal and our team goal is the podium for the time trial,” Weldon said. “We are really focused on the time trial because it is a race against the clock. It really shows how much power we have on the tandem.”
Originally from Thunder Bay and now living in Ottawa, Weldon is a para-skier and has been a para-cyclist since 2010. At the age of 15, Weldon was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a genetic form of macular degeneration that affected her central vision.
Weldon has competed as a Paralympian in the winter games in 2010 and 2014, as well as the 2012 summer games in London, where she won gold in the women’s road race with pilot Lynn Bessette.
Weldon and Lemieux have been training since being teamed up together in July 2015. They have already shared a lot of success together, winning bronze at the World Cup in South Africa last September.
Weldon added that they have had great training camps in California and over a month of training and races in Belgium, the Netherlands, and German, placing 5th in two world cup races in Europe.
“That gave us a really good feel for where we stood internationally,” Weldon said. “Audrey and I are very confident. We’ve done a lot of work over the winter. A big part of me moving to Ottawa was so we could train on a weekly basis and that has shown great results in Europe and nationals. We’ve had really great races here in Ottawa.”
Training in the Ottawa, Montreal, and Gatineau Park area has also been key to Weldon’s strategy, providing her and Audrey with a lot of hill climbing to prepare for the road race course in Rio.
“The road race is very much strategy,” Weldon said. “We saw in the Olympic men’s and women’s race that it is a very technical course, with very long, steep climbs, which is extremely difficult with a tandem. The amount of percentage we are hitting is 15 per cent on some of the climbs. And the descent probably going anywhere from 80 to 100 km/h.”
Weldon added that there have been several crashes on the course, but she said that Lemieux is one of the best para-cycling pilots in the world.
“I have 100 per cent trust in her driving ability,” she said.
Support from Team Canada and Cycling Canada has been phenomenal, Weldon said, and she is excited to see 12 para-cycling athletes competing in the 2016 Rio games.
“We are looking for really good results,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to being there with the team to see what we can do.”
