Paralympic Games notebook: Para cyclist Mel Pemble set for rare double

Para cyclist Mel Pemble is a top contender to pedal to a medal at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris which run from August 28 to September 8.

The track specialist will also be making history as one of the rare athletes to compete at both a winter and summer Paralympic Games. Pemble was a member of the Canada’s winter Games squad in 2018. She competed in Para alpine skiing racing in four events.

However she switched to Para cycling in 2020 and the 24-year-old has rocketed to the top of her sport. She is the 2022 and 2023 world champion in the Omnium and has seven world medals overall.

‘’It’s absolutely amazing to have it (the Games) be so close, but there is also that kind of daunting feeling. Making the team is something I’ve worked towards for the past four years,’’ Pemble told CBC radio. As soon as I started (Para cycling), I set my sights on Paris. It’s always been in the back of my mind.

‘’But I think it was really my international debut in 2022, where I was at the point where I was like, “OK, this is looking a bit more realistic now.”

Brianna Hennessy still considers herself the ‘’new kid on the block’’

She may have five world championship medals over the past three years, but for Brianna Hennessy she still has to reach the podium at the Paralympic Games in order to be considered among the established paddlers in Para canoe.

Hennessy, 39, made her Paralympic Games debut at Tokyo 2020 less than a year after taking up the sport and just a year later (in 2022) she had claimed her first international medals including two at the world championships.

‘’I still consider myself to be the new kid on the block,” she told CTV in a feature report “Everyone else has at least a decade in or more, but it’s been a wild ride because I grew up in contact sports and never did anything in the water.”

Henessy, hit by a car in 2014 which left her tetraplegic, is also an elite wheelchair rugby player. She was a member of Canada’s first ever women’s World Cup team, which won bronze and she also plays mostly against men in the U.S. Rugby Association league.

Different perspective for Renee Foessel as she heads to her third Paralympic Games

Renee Foessel knows all about heading into the Paralympic Games as a top medal contender. And after a silver medal at the 2023 World Championships those expectations will be ever present once again in Paris.

But unlike Rio in 2016 and Tokyo 2020, where she placed fourth both times in women’s F38 discus, in Paris she’ll not only bring more experience but some very important support.

‘’It’s the first time my family will be able to watch me and attend the Paralympic Games,’’ she told Collingwood Today. “To do it (win a medal) with my family supporting me and being present there, it would be beyond words.”

The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will begin with the Opening Ceremony on August 28 and continue through September 8. Audiences can tune in for CBC/Radio-Canada’s coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games from August 28 to September 8 on CBC, CBC Gem, CBC’s Paris 2024 website (cbc.ca/paris2024) and the CBC Paris 2024 app in English and on ICI TÉLÉ, ICI TOU.TV, Radio-Canada.ca/paris2024, and on the Radio-Canada Paralympiques app in French.