Amanda Reid won gold in the Women's C1-3 500m Time Trial. (Channel 7)
Australian para-cyclist Amanda Reid has ridden to a gold medal finish in the Women’s C1-3 500m Time Trial at Izu Velodrome, setting a new World Record along the way.
Australia’s record of medals, and gold medals more so, in the track cycling has continued this morning with Reid cruising to victory to finish atop the podium and extend on a silver medal won at Rio in 2016.
The C2 class rider set a new World Record time of 35.581 after her athlete factoring of 92.45 was applied to her real race time of 38.487. The time at Tokyo 2020 eclipsed the World Record time of 3.918, set by her at the 2020 World Championships in Brisbane which in itself was also a bettering of a World Record set by Reid a year prior.
In a race where individual riders competed for the best times, Reid was the ninth rider to compete. Among the 10 riders in the final, the Sydneysider was the pick of the lot after claiming the World Record time, ranking first at the middle 250m and ending 500m marks.
With athlete factor having the potential to contribute to a rider’s final time, the event’s final rider, eventual silver medallist Alyda Norbruis of the Netherlands couldn’t catch Reid, having the same percentage applied to her time due to being in the same C2 class as Reid.
Norbruis finished with a factored time of 36.057, .476 seconds behind the Australian and 2.013 seconds in front of eventual bronze medallist, Qian Wangwei of China who set a World Record in the C1 class.
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In her third Paralympic Games, Reid has featured in two sports. First, at London 2012 she competed in swimming and made the final, finishing fifth before turning her attention to cycling in 2015. The switch back to a sport she’d formerly been a part of paid off after she won silver at Rio 2016, now adding a gold medal to her Paralympic collection.
A proud Wemba Wemba and Guring-gai woman whose hero is Cathy Freeman, Reid becomes just the fifth Indigenous Australia to win gold at the Paralympics and first since swimmer Ben Austin at Beijing 2008.
The 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy has won five national titles from 2013 to 2018 and in 2017 took out two world titles in the time trial and individual pursuit. Reid established herself on the world stage with a silver medal performance in the 500m Time Trial at the 2016 Para Track World Championships, leading to her first chance of representing her home country.
Reid’s Paralympic campaign doesn’t stop with this event though, as she features in the Mixed C1-5 750m Team Sprint with qualifications beginning on Day 4.
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