Blind cyclist Pam Fernandes is building an enviable track record.
Despite frequent changes in tandem partners and a lack of races close to home,
the Needham track and road cyclist who won a bronze medal in the 1996
Paralympics is in full pursuit of the gold in 2000.
By mid-season,
Fernandes had racked up an unofficial world sprint record and another national
time trial title, plus the Massachusetts tandem criterium championship -- all
with different pilots.
This from a woman who had been talking the
previous season about retiring and watching a new generation of disabled
athletes develop.
"I didn't do as well last year," said Fernandes,
38, at home after the European Disabled Cycling Championships in Blois, France,
in July. "Now my faith in continuing racing, at least for a little bit, has been
refueled."
Tandem riding is a natural for the blind, for the stoker
doesn't need to see. The pilot steers and shifts gears; the stoker supplies
horsepower. Many racing pilots prefer blind partners, because unlike sighted
stokers, they do not lean to get a view of the road or try to "drive" the bike.
Fernandes' best showing in the European event, which was open to
non-European teams this year for the first time, was second place in the mixed
tandem kilo. She was racing for the first time with pilot Kenny Williams of
Tacoma, Wash., who was fresh from winning the individual time trial in the 30-34
age group at the U.S.
Masters National Road Championships in Fort Smith, Ark.
It was
another first-time partner, Al Whaley of Houston, Texas, who teamed up with
Fernandes in June to set a U.S. mixed blind tandem record of 11.16 seconds in
the flying 200-meter sprint during the Tandem Track Cup Series in Colorado
Springs, Colo.
"We smashed it (the record of 11.61 seconds, held by
Americans Cara Dunne and Scott Evans) by over half a second, and that's
significant when you're talking about an 11-second race," Fernandes said.
The world record for mixed blind tandems, officially, is 11.38
seconds, set on the same track in 1998 by a German team.
Whaley, who
on his own has won four national and two world track titles in masters
competition since 1996, initially had doubts about piloting Fernandes' bike.
"I'd heard all these horror stories from other pilots she'd had, about how the
bike was really flimsy, like a wet noodle."
But he got to ride the
bike alone before Fernandes got on, and it "wasn't bad at all." He said he
believed from their first clocked sprint that they could attain a record time.
"Our first 200 ever on that bike, we did like 11.6," he said.
Fernandes "loves leg speed, to spin fast, and so do I," said Whaley, 39, who in
1997 became the first African-American to win a world track cycling championship
since Worcester's Mashall W. "Major" Taylor in 1899. "I gave her some exercises
to do on the trainer to improve her cadence, and it just really worked out for
us."
Fernandes was diagnosed as a diabetic at age 4 and lost her
eyesight at age 21. Her kidneys stopped functioning, and after years of
dialysis, she had a kidney transplant in 1987. She took up cycling as a way to
regain fitness after more than 20 operations.
She has to monitor her
glucose level closely during training and races. She had a hard time maintaining
the proper blood sugar level during the European championships and ended up
altering her insulin regimen on the advice of a physician from another team.
"You have never seen one person consume so much Coke and glucose tablets in one
day," she said.
Until her insurance-company job was phased out last
December, Fernandes was the project manager at The Hartford for a campaign
called Break Away, promoting athletics for people with disabilities. The
Hartford's Team Ability is still her major sponsor.
Being a full-time
athlete still means juggling family responsibilities -- Fernandes has a husband
and a school-age stepson -- and beating the bushes for sponsors. Her agent is
Kevin O'Neill of Capital Sports Ventures, the same agency that represents Lance
Armstrong.
"None of this would be attainable without all of the
people who have sacrificed their own goals to work with me," Fernandes said.
"I've had some great partners, but it also shows me that I'm not washed up at
38."
"I feel honored just being on the bike with her. The attitude
that she has is just so cool," Whaley said. "Man, what a go-getter! This girl's
got a fire in her ... If I can help her get there (to the 2000 Paralympics in
Sydney, Australia), it's all cookies in the cookie jar for me."
Fernandes and Whaley raced together in the EDS Elite National Track
Championships in Trexlertown, Pa., this month, setting a national record
for mixed blind tandems in the flying 1-kilometer event at 19.78 seconds.
"We are definitely on track for the gold in Sydney," Fernandes said.
"We need a new bike, one that fits Al better and is more suited to sprinting on
the track. Once we have that and get more training together, we hope to go even
faster."
~~~
While Lance Armstrong is mountain biking this
weekend at Mount Snow, some of his U.S. Postal Service teammates are getting
ready to hit the road at the other big Vermont ski area that shapes cycling
champions: Killington. Last year's winners of the Killington Stage
Race, George Hincapie (U.S. Postal Service) and Linda Jackson (Timex), will
return Sept. 4-6 to defend their titles.
Hincapie will be joined by
teammates Christian Vande Velde and Dylan Casey. Rivals include Trent Klasna
(Navigators) and Mark McCormack (Saturn), who won the Rutland Criterium at
Killington last year. (McCormack recently made the biggest win of his career, a
stage victory Aug. 13 in the Tour of Denmark. The Postal team's Tyler Hamilton,
also from Massachusetts, was the overall winner.)
The Killington
race, which competes with the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic annually
for racers' votes for "New England's best bike race," has been shortened this
year from five days to three. The prologue time trial and the Sunrise Road Race
have been eliminated, leaving the Brandon Gap Road Race, the Rutland Crit and
the Saab Road Race.
The reason is "lack of sponsorship," said
Killington spokeswoman Lisa Durstin-Madigan, although the press releases mention
only "a competing Canadian event." Also, it was difficult for many amateur
racers to get that much time off, she said. The prize list has shrunk from
$27,500 to $21,000. Fitchburg's purse was $25,000 this year.
Although
Tour de France winner Armstrong will not be at Killington, his foundation for
cancer research will get a boost there from the charity event Ride for a Reason,
a 35-mile recreational bike ride on Sept. 4.
~~~
TIP OF THE
HELMET -- To Gardner native Paul Martin for his first podium finish in a USA
Triathlon-sanctioned race: third place in his age group in Scott Tinley's High
Altitude Triathlon on Aug. 8 in Brian Head, Utah. Martin, 32, lost a leg in a
car accident seven years ago and uses a prosthetic limb. He lives in Boulder,
Colo.