By Lynn Binnie
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com
John Ranger Terrell, age 28, is staying in an Airbnb in Whitewater as he prepares for the time trials for U.S. Paralympics Cycling on Wednesday, June 14. John currently resides in the Olympic Village in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He spoke with the Banner about his para-cycling journey as he also explained the rules involved in the sport.
Rock Prairie Presbyterian Church, 8605 E County Road A in the Town of Johnstown, is the site of the time trials for U.S. Paralympics Cycling on Wednesday, June 14. Dozens of para-athletes will be competing in their ongoing effort to win the right to compete in the 2023 Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Para-cycling Road World Championships in August in Glasgow, Scotland. Their ultimate goal is to make the team for the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris.
According to teamusa.org, “Road para-cycling made its Paralympic debut at New York/Stoke Mandeville 1984 and has been contested at every Games since. Track para-cycling entered the Paralympic program 12 years later at Atlanta 1996. The sport was developed in the 1980s and was first open to vision impaired athletes who competed in tandems with a sighted pilot. Over the following years, para-cycling started to include those with cerebral palsy, amputations and other physical impairments, who compete on bicycles, tricycles and hand cycles.
There are five sport classes for hand cycling, two for tricycle, and five for bicycle, whilst the three sport classes for the tandem compete in one event. Athletes participate in World Cups, world, and regional Championships throughout the year.”
Many Whitewater residents are probably more familiar with another Paralympics sport, wheelchair basketball. In both sports the athletes are classified by their level of infirmity, a term that Terrell prefers over disability. In the upright bike the classes range from one to five, with five being used for an athlete with the least infirmity. John was hit by a car as a pedestrian when he was 19 and experienced a brachial plexus injury as a result of blunt-force trauma. He tried to salvage his limb for over two years, but his nerve transplant surgeries were unsuccessful, and he finally made the very difficult decision to accept amputation. His journey included struggles with addiction to the opioids that he was prescribed. He would normally be considered a “five,” but due to an additional infirmity in his legs, he’s a “four.” Something that often confuses spectators is that infirmities are not always obvious; for example, John might be competing with someone with cerebral palsy.
In his youth John was a huge BMX racing devotee, working with his friends to build courses with higher and higher jumps in the woods near his home in San Antonio, Texas. His goal was to become a professional BMX rider. After his accident John was told that his BMX dreams were “toast,” but he was in denial. While finally setting his sights on turning his love for BMX into mastering para-cycling, John earned a B.S. in biochemistry and a Master’s degree in sports management. He has already started a nonprofit organization through which he intends to mentor para-cyclists.
The Johnstown time trial will be a 16 kilometer rectangular road course. The roads will be closed to traffic, but John indicated that it is unfortunately not uncommon, and dangerous, to encounter a car on the route. Most of the athletes will complete one circuit, but John’s class will ride 32 kilometers. The athletes start the race one minute apart; they are not competing against each other but against the clock. John hopes to complete the approximate 18.6 miles in about 38 minutes. That would represent an average speed of 29 miles per hour. Yes, he acknowledged, one of the challenges that he had to overcome early in his training was maintaining his balance.
In this life, John said, “we all get disabled in some way. For some, it happens very early in life; for others, it’s not until the final days.” Every challenge that has come his way in his journey has been an opportunity for growth. Here’s what he said in another interview, “Believe in yourself, define yourself, invest time in yourself and make the most of every single day. Life is a series of decisions, so I want to encourage people to make better decisions and to constantly look to improve their previous efforts. We become good at whatever we practice, so make the choice every day to practice positivity and to implement self-accountability. What is for you will not go past you.”
What’s John’s view of Lance Armstrong, whose seven consecutive Tour de France titles were stripped after an investigation found he used performance-enhancing drugs over his career? John indicated that what most of the public doesn’t know is that every high performing cyclist in those years ultimately tested positive or admitted having used such drugs. What Armstrong accomplished was still unbelievable, and he was the only person who was penalized for the violation, as the sport wanted to make an example of him.
John is laser focused on making the U.S. para-cycling team for the 2024 Summer Paralympics. He’s enjoyed so much success this season that for a while he was wearing the “leader” jersey. John’s Instagram handle is @fivefingergrip and he’s on Facebook at John Ranger Terrell. (How’d he get his middle name? His father was an Army Ranger.) Here’s an interesting interview with him.
The time trials begin at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and John hits the track at 11:24 a.m.
