Kelly Crowley poses for a portrait near her home in Redwood City, Calif. on Friday, April 6, 2012. Crowley hopes to compete in cycling at the Paralympic Games in London. (Jim Gensheimer/Staff)
Cyclist Kelly Crowley of Redwood City won a bronze medal Wednesday at the London Paralympics six weeks after breaking a collarbone during an accident in a race.
"This has been a long, challenging journey to get to the podium," Crowley told this newspaper in an e-mail. "Many, many training rides I pushed through physical and mental pain only because I really believed I was capable of medaling at the Games."
Crowley, a former Santa Clara University valedictorian, will try for another medal Thursday in the women's road race. After winning two gold medals in swimming in the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece, Crowley made a successful debut in cycling in the C5 time trial at the Brands Hatch motor racing circuit in the county of Kent in southeast England.
British star Sarah Storey won the event -- her third gold medal of the London Games. "To be on the podium when the crowd went wild for Sarah as a moment I will never forget," Crowley said.
The Sacred Heart Prep graduate overcame a shifting malfunction during the race to get the medal. She described the course the as the toughest she has seen in "paracycling."
Crowley, born without an elbow and three fingers on her right arm, got invited to the Paralympics by the International Cycling Union. Initially she didn't get nominated to the U.S. cycling team despite winning the time trial and road race in her category at the national championships.
Then Crowley broke her collarbone
July 22 on the final day of the Cascade Classic stage race in Oregon.She had surgery two days later to get a small titanium plate inserted over the bone to help it heal. Crowley returned to her training bike four days after the surgery.
"It has taken a while to get my strength and range of motion back and I'm still not quite 100 percent," she said. "When I showed up at our camp two weeks ago in Wales I couldn't do a standing start for the pursuit because the pain was so bad."
Crowley, 35, finished sixth in the pursuit race on the track but had her best time.
Just making the 2012 Paralympics had been a big achievement. Crowley was hoping to compete at the Beijing Games after being the 2007 world time trial champion. But she got knocked out of contention when suffering injuries in a crash while training at the Home Depot Center velodrome in early 2008.
The crash came less than a year after Crowley got clipped by a car on Highway 1 while returning from a training ride in San Francisco. She suffered a concussion after hitting the back of her head.
Contact Elliott Almond at 408-920-5865 and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/elliottalmond.
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