Canada’s Leanne Taylor has won a triathlon bronze medal at the Paralympic Games in Paris.
The 32-year-old from Winnipeg finished third in the women’s wheelchair triathlon behind victor Lauren Parker of Australia and silver medallist Kendall Gretsch of the United States.
“I don’t think it’s really set in yet. … it meant so much to me to have a performance that got them to cheer even louder than they already were. I’m super excited,” Taylor said after the race.
“It was a really tough day for me. Even coming into it, I wasn’t feeling well coming into the race, so I was really nervous about how hard I was going to be able to push.”
Taylor made her Paralympic debut in Paris. She was paralyzed from the waist down in a mountain bike crash five years ago.
“I was injured in a bike accident six years ago, and there’s a massive group of people who supported me to get to this point. Just to have something to show them like ‘this is why we did it,'” she said.
The distance is a 750-metre swim, a 20-kilometre handbike and a five-kilometre wheelchair race.
Taylor posted an overall time of one hour 12 minutes and 11 seconds.
Parker upgraded her silver medal from three years ago in Tokyo after clocking 1:06:23, dethroning defending champion Gretsch (1:07:46).
Para triathlon had the same scheduling problems as in the Olympic Games.
The schedule was altered and races postponed because of water quality issues in the Seine River.