Eoghan Clifford believes the injury that has hit him in Rio is linked to the wasting of his leg muscles, but he has still blasted to a Paralympic bronze medal for Ireland.
Struggling with a leg injury at the Paralympic Games where he had hoped to really shine on the biggest stage, Eoghan Clifford but the pain barrier to one side and has blasted to a bronze medal for Ireland.
The Galway man, riding his first Paralympics, took the bronze medal last night in the men’s C3 individual pursuit.
In the immediate aftermath of his win in the ride off for the bronze, and indeed directly after his riding clocking the fourth quickest time in the qualifiers, Clifford seemed disappointed.
Quite clearly he was dealing with a sense of what might have been had he not been nursing his injury.
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However, after being presented with his medal and seen the tricolour hoisted high in the Rio velodrome he seemed happier with his lot.
Cyclist Eoghan Clifford on the feeling of "giving something back" after claiming bronze in Rio https://t.co/s57D6jgPt8
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 9, 2016
“I didn’t really win that because I’ve better legs,” he said of taking the bronze in the ride off with Michael Sametz from Canada.
“I was in agony from the start with my knee and stuff, I won it because I felt I would let so many people down if I didn’t medal today.
“In training I’ve been very good in the first four laps, but the difference today was whereas normally from my fourth lap to my twelfth lap I don’t drop time, today I was eating time.
“And actually after four laps in the qualifier I thought I would break the Paralympic record, my legs just weren’t up to it. Great I had a buffer because my legs were in bits.”
The two fastest qualifiers - David Nicholas of Australian and American world champion Joseph Berenyi – faced each other in a head-to-head to decide gold and silver, with Nicholas winning it.
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Clifford won his medal ride-off in a time of 3.40.201 and while he was about 2.5 seconds up on the Canadian at one point despite his knee injury, that was pegged back to 1.3 seconds by the finish, though the Irishman always looked in control.
Clifford, a 35-year-old NUI Galway lecturer, suffers from the hereditary muscular degenerative disease Charcot-Marie-Tooth. And he believes his knee injury is linked to his condition worsening.
He wasn't exactly overjoyed with missing the chance to go for gold, but by the time he got his medal he appeared pretty happy.
“I think it stems from the fact that my lower leg is so wasted,” he said.
“I am generating a lot of power up here but the transition down through my legs is quite poor so it is putting a lot of pressure on my knee.
“It was the only worry I had coming into the Games,” he continued.
In training I had done some times that wouldn’t have got me next to near a bronze medal and then two days later I would do a time that was close to the world or Paralympic record.
“It was frustrating from that point of view. I didn’t feel I had any control over it.
“I think it is more my condition. I generate a lot of power in my upper legs. On the road bike I don’t particularly get the same injury.
“My condition is degenerative, and in the last few years, the muscle mass in my lower legs has decreased quite significantly.”
He will also ride the road race and road TT late in the Games.
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