Mike Sametz confronts adversity one more time

OTTAWA – There’s no stopping Mike Sametz.

This past August on Opening Ceremony day at the Paralympic Games, Sametz’s Games was over before it even began. In his morning training session, the 28-year-old Para cyclist from Calgary crashed violently while road training and broke his hip.

He was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery and a long recovery was projected for the Paralympian to be back on the saddle.

‘’It was a very unspectacular accident,’’ recalled Sametz at the Team Canada Celebration in Ottawa last week, where he was walking with the aid of a crutch as he congratulated and mingled with his Paralympic and Olympic teammates. ‘’I went from the road to the bike path and I didn’t notice the gutter was at an angle and my wheels hit it.

‘’Because I have cerebral palsy, I didn’t brace for it like I normally do. So, I must have flopped at the wrong angle and at a strong force. I pretty much snapped my femur.

‘’I had a strong suspicion it could have been broken when I first hit it because of how hard the fall was. I was hoping the pain was just a bone pain, and I could just sit in a recovery tub for a couple days and be back at it. But once I got the x-rays, I was like, oh…’’

Three screws were needed to re-attach the broken bone, the biggest in the human body.

‘’It’s just been a recovery process for the last three months since.’’

His absence from the Paris competition was particularly heartbreaking because Sametz was looking to cap one of the great Paralympic comebacks in recent memory. He entered the Games as a top contender in the Para cycling road events after winning the bronze medal at the road time trial at the 2023 worlds in Scotland

That was his first major competition in five years. Sametz burst on the international stage as an 18-year-old with a fifth place in the time trial at the 2014 worlds. At Rio 2016, he took the bronze in his prime event and was world champion in 2017 and 2018.

Sometime after those worlds, he dealt with illness and injury which notably kept him out of the Tokyo Paralympic Games as well as three world road championships.

Sametz fought a lengthy battle and eventually recovered from RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport). RED-S is a condition characterized by insufficient energy intake to meet the body’s demands during exercise.

‘’The RED-S experience was tougher, because this one [broken bone] has more of a timeline for recovery,’’ said Sametz, born with right hemiplegic cerebral palsy. ‘’But honestly the last few years have been really difficult.

“The accident was so early on in the Paris trip that I didn’t really feel the effects immediately,’’ he said. “But it was really hard watching my race and seeing what could have been.’’

Sametz is hopeful he’ll be back in action sooner than later. He has recovered faster than doctors originally predicted walking after six weeks instead of eight.

‘’I’ve been really able to put more force and body weight into my right leg since early November,’’ he said. ‘’Now I’m trying to fill back that strength on the right side. I’m back on the trainer bike right now and I’ll go on the road once I feel comfortable enough.

‘’I should be back for next spring, for the race season and hopefully come back stronger.”

Sametz and Nathan Clement launch Podcast

Sametz and his teammate Nathan Clement launched a podcast on December 2 called Rubber Side Down.

‘’It’s somewhat informal and the goal is to get the raw perspective from Paralympians of what it’s like to compete at the elite level and really showcase that.”

You can access the podcast on Spotify and for more information, visit the podcast’s Instagram page.