→←News→'I was pretty fired up and determined': Meg Lemon wins silver to end 2022 Para-cycling Road Worlds
'I was pretty fired up and determined': Meg Lemon wins silver to end 2022 Para-cycling Road Worlds
Aug 17, 2022
Australia has ended the 2022 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Baie-Comeau with three medals on the final day of competition, winning two silvers and a bronze.
After falling agonisingly short of a medal in the women’s C4 time trial, Meg Lemon turned in a determined performance to win silver in the women’s C4 road race.
Kaitlyn Schurmann added a second silver medal to her 2022 collection in the women’s C1 road race, and Alistair Donohoe took home bronze in the men’s C5 road race.
Buoyed by her self-stated disappointing fourth place finish in the time trial two days earlier, 32-year-old Lemon was a woman on a mission around Baie-Comeau on Sunday.
“I was pretty fired up and determined to redeem myself in the road race,” Lemon said.
“So it felt pretty special to get a medal and it was something going through my head every time I had to dig deeper and find more.”
Lemon was able to draw upon the assistance of teammate Emily Petricola in the earlier laps of the 70.2-kilometre race in an attempt to keep pace with the C5 categorised women who were racing in the same start wave.
“The plan was to get Australia on the podium, so I knew I would do everything possible to get either Em or myself up there,” Lemon said.
“We had a few phases, but the goal was to stay with the C5s and (Samantha) Bosco as long as possible.
“I was able to just hold on up the hills but an American attacked in the technical section, so Em and I worked together to try to catch them. I almost closed the gap on the third or fourth time up the hill, but they attacked again.
“Em, unfortunately, hurt her back, so I tried holding off the other C5s and the Canadian C4 (Keely Shaw) but realised it was three against one, so I waited and attacked every hill to wear them out.
“On the last hill I knew I had to go really hard to get a gap before the last two kilometres.
“It worked but Keely didn't make it easy chasing me with C5s. I was lucky to find something extra and just kept fighting until the end to get silver. The gap was too big to Bosco to close by myself.”
Meg Lemon and Emily Petricola.
Lemon added the continued development of para-cycling made the 2022 edition of the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships a hard campaign.
“Every class is getting harder, but I find it can be two-fold as a positive to push you harder to get stronger, faster, more skilful to keep matching your opponents,” she said.
“Bosco has come back flying so it was a bit of a shock, and the gap seems large (at the moment) but it hasn't stopped me before, so hopefully I can keep rising to the occasion.”
In other results, Darren Hicks finished fifth in the men’s C2 road race, as did Candice Kennedy and pilot Kelly Fettes in the women’s B road race, and Paige Greco in the women’s C3 road race.
Para-cycling Road Worlds debutant Amanda Reid did not finish the women’s C2 road race.
Australia finished 11th on the 2022 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships medal rankings, with five silver medals and four bronze medals.
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