US wheelchair racer’s bid for seven golds falls short – Wounded US veteran to compete in paratriathlon on 9/11

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Massed players challenge for the ball in the Spain vs Turkey Men’s – Group A Preliminary, Basketball Match 22v of the Paralympic Games, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sept 10. (AFP).
Massed players challenge for the ball in the Spain vs Turkey Men’s – Group A Preliminary, Basketball Match 22v of the Paralympic Games, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sept 10. (AFP).

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept 10, (AP): US wheelchair racer Tatyana McFadden was aiming to win seven gold medals at the Rio Paralympics, in every event from the 100 meters to the marathon. Her bid for the unprecedented feat didn’t make it past her first final, in the 100. Liu Wenjun of China broke ahead at the start and won Friday in 16 seconds. McFadden closed hard over the final 40 meters, but finished second in 16.13. Li Yingjie, also of China, took the bronze.

“This is one of my hardest races because I’m going from the 100 to the marathon, and so to really focus on this race is quite difficult because I’m going against girls who just do the (100 meters) and the (400 meters) and I knew it was going to be tough because you have team China, who is amazing at the 1 and the 4,” McFadden said.

“I had a bad start, but my execution was amazing and I really just raced with my heart and took in emotions from the crowd.” Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, with spina bifida that left her paralyzed below the waist, McFadden started using a wheelchair at age 6, after being adopted by an American woman, Deborah McFadden.

The 27-year-old McFadden graduated from Illinois, where she joined the wheelchair basketball and wheelchair track teams, making her Paralympic debut in 2004. With this silver, McFadden is a 12-time medalist.

Since hauling in three golds at the 2012 London Paralympics, McFadden had won every race in which she had competed until Friday. Her 20-win streak included three consecutive wheelchair marathon grand slams, and a sweep of the International Paralympic Committee world championship in all six of her individual events, becoming the first woman to accomplish the feat.

McFadden won bronze in the 100 in London and silver in Athens.

“With this silver I’m still happy, because in London I got bronze. I’m moving up in the ranks,” she said. “I know I can do the next couple races, so I just have to stay relaxed stay calm and really just believe in myself.”

Meanwhile, fifteen years ago, Melissa Stockwell was a senior at Colorado, wearing her ROTC uniform as she watched the Sept. 11 attacks unfold on television.

On Sunday, she will put on a different national uniform, Team USA’s, as she competes for gold in the Paralympic triathlon.

“To hear the national anthem, with my hand over my heart on Sept. 11 — there’s not even a way to really describe the feelings that I would have in that moment,” Stockwell said.

In 2004, Stockwell lost her left leg to a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq, becoming the first female American soldier to lose a limb in active combat.

Stockwell usually competes with a “Never Forget 9/11/01” sticker on her American flag-themed bike. The sticker is just above the handlebars, so she can see it while she’s racing.

For Sunday’s race, though, she will have to cover up the sticker to comply with International Paralympic Committee rules. She used some blue electrical tape for the job.

“We have specific rules regarding what brands can be displayed here in competition,” IPC spokesperson Craig Spence said, “so that (covering the sticker) is consistent with the rules.”

Said Stockwell: “I know it’s under there, so I’ll be imagining it.”

Stockwell was a gymnast as a child. Through that, she fell in love with the American flag and the idea of putting on a uniform and representing the US at the Olympic Games.

While that dream never materialized, Stockwell found another way to represent her country by joining the Army through ROTC. Three weeks after she was deployed to Iraq in 2004, the Humvee she was riding in hit the bomb.

In 2008, Stockwell became the first Iraq War veteran to compete in the Paralympics, swimming in three events. She did not qualify for any finals. She carried the flag for Team USA in the closing ceremony.

She won the first of three consecutive paratriathlon world championships in 2010. Then, in 2014, she gave birth to her son, Dallas.

“She basically had to start over,” Stockwell’s husband, Brian Tolsma, said about her training. “She went harder, stronger and faster than I’ve ever seen.”

But now she’s back on a global stage. The Rio Games mark the first time paratriathlon is on the program.

While in Rio, Stockwell will be away from her son for about 2ó weeks. She shared with her husband that she felt depressed about being away from Dallas for so long, but then she remembered all of the soldiers that leave their children for a year at a time.

Stockwell has been awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star Medal. She said she would cherish a Paralympic medal slightly more.

“I want to be known more for not what happened to me,” she said, “but what I did with my injury after it happened.”

Stockwell signs everything “Melissa Stockwell USA,” said Keri Serota, executive director of the nonprofit Dare2tri Paratriathlon Club that Stockwell co-founded to help athletes with physical disabilities and visual impairments train for triathlons.

Tolsma joked that she signs her checks the same way, so people end up referring to her as “Mrs. USA.”

“Anywhere she can put a flag, she’s just going to do it,” Tolsma said. Whether it’s a room in her house, her bike or her prosthetic leg, there is an American flag of some sort.

She does this, she said, because it might spark a conversation with a bystander about the military and thanking those who have served for their sacrifices. Stockwell’s sacrifice did not stop her. Instead, she called it “added motivation” for Sunday’s race, on the 15th anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks.

“Somebody over in Iraq didn’t want me here anymore and they took my leg,” Stockwell said, “but I have the rest of me and here I am competing in Rio at the Paralympic Games, going for the gold.”

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