Clara Brown (cyclist)

Clara Brown (born 3 November 1995) is an American para cyclist who competes in international level events in both track cycling and road cycling.[1][2]

Clara Brown
Personal information
Nickname(s)Brownie
Born (1995-11-03) 3 November 1995
Portland, Maine, United States
Height1.60 m (5 ft 3 in)
Weight120 lb (54 kg)
Sport
Country United States
SportPara cycling
Disability classC3
Event(s)Track cycling
Road cycling
ClubColorado Springs Olympic Training Center
Coached bySarah Hammer
Medal record
Para cycling
Representing  United States
World Road Championships
2019 EmmenRoad race
2019 EmmenTime trial
World Track Championships
2020 MiltonTime trial
2020 MiltonOmnium
2020 MiltonTrack pursuit
2020 MiltonScratch
Parapan American Games
2019 LimaRoad time trial
2019 LimaRoad race
2019 LimaIndividual pursuit
2019 LimaTrack time trial

Sporting career

Early beginnings

Brown was a very active young person: she was a competitive artistic gymnast, runner and skier before her freak accident in March 2008 in a gymnastics training session; she sustained an incomplete spinal cord injury when she was twelve years old where she broke two vertebrae and was paralysed from the neck down. She spent many years of spinal cord and brain injury physical rehabilitation at Shepherd Center in Atlanta which gave her excruciating pain in her left leg caused by avascular necrosis before she joined her high school rowing team as a coxswain at Falmouth High School.[3]

Discovery of para sport

She has mild hemiplegia on her left side but cannot feel anything from the neck down, she has very little motor function on her right side.

Brown bought her first modified road bike when she attended first year at University of Puget Sound to use as a means of transport and to keep fit and healthy. Her bike's modifications are the rear brake's lever is on the left due to her right hand almost paralysed, her bar end shifters are changed so that she could use her wrists to change gears. Once she graduated from college, she worked at a bike touring company and this was where she met someone who works for the Paralympic Advisory Committee and she then decided to join the United States Paralympic Committee to become a competitive para-cyclist.[4]

Her first international competition was an invitation by her then-coach to participate in the Para-cycling World Cup in 2018 at Baie-Comeau in Canada where she was third in the road race and fourth in the time trial. She went to the 2019 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Emmen, Netherlands and won two of her first medals in the competition: two bronze medals then in September, she went to represent the United States at the 2019 Parapan American Games in Lima, Peru where she won two gold medals and two silver medals in both road and track cycling events.[5]

References
  1. "Clara Brown – Team USA". United States Olympic Committee. 26 May 2020.
  2. "Sideline Stories: Clara Brown". Maine Sports Commission. 17 March 2020.
  3. Price, Karen (6 December 2018). "Fate Leads Former Competitive Gymnast Clara Brown Down Para-cycling Path". teamusa.org/News/2018/December/06/Fate-Leads-Former-Competitive-Gymnast-Clara-Brown-Down-Para-cycling-Path.
  4. "After a Gymnastics Accident Left Her Paralyzed, Clara Brown Found Solace in Cycling". bicycling.com. 7 January 2019.
  5. "Bicycle opens new avenues – and much more – to para-cyclist Clara Brown". Bicycle Colorado. 6 February 2019.
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