From para-triathlon to para-cycling: Parker sets sights on Glasgow and Paris

When doctors told Lauren Parker she would never be an athlete again following a freak cycling accident that left her paraplegic, she checked herself out of hospital.

The Newcastle-based triathlete had spent six months in hospital and rehab after suffering horrific injuries she sustained when both tyres on her time trial bike exploded almost simultaneously during a training ride ahead of Ironman Australia.

Travelling at 45km/h she lost control of the bike and hit a guard rail.

She had ridden over two screws on the road that had been used to keep traffic monitoring cables in place but were left behind after the cables were removed. 

“If I was one millimetre on either side of them, I would have been fine,” Parker recalls of the accident in 2017. 

But at that moment and split second, her life would change forever.

“I broke my shoulder, four broken ribs, punctured lung, broken pelvis, broken back and obviously spinal cord damage, which left me instantly paralysed from the waist down. It changed my life in a split second. I went into hospital for spinal fusion surgery, and then they told me that I'll never walk again, that I need to live the rest of my life in a wheelchair.”

Parker recalls being told by a physio that she would never be an athlete again.

“After three months in hospital and three months in rehab, I signed myself out because it was really negative. They told me I'll never be an athlete again. And that I'll need to learn to live the rest of my life in a wheelchair. Around that time, I found out that para-triathlon existed.”

She says it gave her hope that she would continue her dream of being an elite athlete.

“It gave me hope that I could get it back into my sport. It saved my life. So, I did what I could to get the necessary equipment, a hand cycle and racing wheelchair. I did my first race in January of 2018,” she said.

That race was the Commonwealth Games trials, and despite only having been on a handcycle for one month, she qualified for the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Her second race was at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, 11 months after her accident. She finished on the podium with a bronze medal.

She has since, well and truly proven those doctors who said she would never be an athlete again wrong. Among her many achievements in the sport, she has won three world championships, was Ironman Para World Champion in Kona, Hawaii, and claimed silver at the Tokyo Paralympics.

Now she is looking to make her mark in the sport of para-cycling, hoping to gain selection for the Cycling World Championships in Glasgow this August, and looking ahead to Paris 2024, she is hoping to qualify in both para-triathlon and para-cycling.

“It's been a goal of mine and cycling is my strongest leg in a triathlon, so I always felt like I could be successful in the hand cycle,” she said.

Parker came in firing for her first international para-cycling world cup event in Belgium earlier this year. She won the H3 time trial, a whopping 1 minute and 20 seconds ahead of second place.

“I didn't expect to win my first World Cup time trial, especially by one minute and 20 seconds, but it was definitely surprising,” she said.

“It definitely gives me confidence knowing that I can win and I know that I'll be stronger in Glasgow than I was in Belgium. I mean, every race is learning. I've only done one World Cup, so I can’t get ahead of myself. I just have to take each race as it comes.”

She followed up her gold medal with an equally impressive silver in the 56km road race, pipped by world champion Annika Zeyen in a sprint finish.

It instilled confidence in the 34-year-old who had not raced in a group road race on a handcycle previously.

“That was really new and it was a bit scary. Imagine all the hand cycles are hitting each other and it was that crazy. I handled it fine; I've done road races before on an able-bodied bike so I knew the tactics and had an idea of how to race it.

"It’s actually quite dangerous because you're going so fast and you're so low to the ground.”

Parker’s strength and endurance over her rivals were evident, as she found herself forcing the pace when the racing eased off.

“We were all in a group of eight, and I found the pace really slow. So, I just jumped out and I went for it. A couple of girls went with me and that broke the group up. That was with three laps to go out of eight.”

Riders would get dropped each time Parker would apply the pressure until it was just herself and Zeyen left at the end. 

“It was just my lack of experience I guess, I was leading into the last corner, which was the left-hand turn before the sprint finish. I took the normal line that you would any other time you go out and then come in. But Zeyen went on the inside.

“I learned a lot and I found that I've got the endurance in my arms and I believe that I can hold the girls off.”

Parker is currently training at home in Newcastle in the lead-up to a big 12-week block of competition overseas between July and October, starting with a triathlon Paralympic qualifier in Montreal.

Her training schedule involves a mix of sessions between swimming, handcycle and run chair, or a combination, gym sessions, and variation of intensity each day.

She said the training also helps with the immense nerve pain she suffers every day as a result of the accident.

“I was also left with horrific neuropathic (nerve) pain to 90 per cent of my body from my chest to my feet. So, every second of every day I'm in pain. Right now, I'm in horrific pain. I feel like I'm being stabbed with needles from my chest to my feet everywhere through my body, or like my whole body is on fire.

“Training and racing and having that in my life has definitely helped. That's why I got back into sport because it helps me deal and overcome with nerve pain and helps my mind focus on something else. The pain never goes away so for the rest of my life I’ll be in pain. I’ve exhausted all options to reduce it but I’ve got a severe case of it. At the moment there is no cure.”

Looking back on the first time she rode a handcycle after her accident six years ago, she says she is proud of what she has been able to achieve.

“I never thought back then that I would have achieved what I have and definitely wouldn't have dreamed of it. I had my goals but you just don't know at that point what's going to happen. It's been hard work, a lot of hard work, a lot of setbacks, a lot of surgeries that I had to get through as well.”