Sport

Paralympian Mark Rohan withdraws from Rio 2016

The Athlone native won double gold in London in 2012 but will not go to Brazil

Ireland’s Mark Rohan on his way to winning gold in the Men’s Individual H1 Road Race at the London 2012 Paralympics. Photo: Greg Smith/Inpho
Ireland’s Mark Rohan on his way to winning gold in the Men’s Individual H1 Road Race at the London 2012 Paralympics. Photo: Greg Smith/Inpho
Brian McDonald
Wed Oct 21 2015 - 17:06

Ireland’s soaring stock in Paralympic sport has been dealt a massive blow with the decision of double Olympic champion Mark Rohan not to compete in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

The 34-year-old Athlone man was the toast of the nation when he took gold twice in the London Games in 2012 and he quickly became the poster boy for disabled sport in Ireland.

But Rohan confirmed on Wednesday that he was abandoning plans to make it to Rio next year after he had been reclassified to compete in a more powerful division of paracycling.

In an interview with his local paper, The Westmeath Independent, he said: “I won’t be competing next year for a place on the Irish paracycling team that will travel to Rio.

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“I was re-classified last year at the 2014 World Championships after they rejigged the categories in 2013 to allow another category enter.

“I contested the decision as I was always borderline with my injury and unfortunately I just fell the wrong side of the classification cutoff this time.

“The decision of UCI was to keep me in the new H3 Division and this effectively ended my hopes of competing in Rio as, in my educated experience of racing and the power required to compete, it’s physically impossible for me to compete with the best H3 cyclists”.

Mark Rohan won a gold medal in the Men’s road time trial H1 event and in the Men’s road race H1 events in the London Olympics. He is paralysed from the chest down after a serious road accident in 2001.

He had previously played Gaelic football for his club, Castledaly and for Westmeath and was also a competitive basketball player.

A spokesperson for Paralympics Ireland said yesterday that the organisation had not yet heard of his decision to opt out of Rio, but paid tribute to his achievements, describing him as “a legend”.

The spokesperson said: “We knew he had issues with his classification, but he hadn’t told us-all cyclists have to qualify for Rio yet.

“He has been re-classified and that doesn’t really make him competitive-there is such a difference and he was a borderline case.

“We’re disappointed the opportunity is not going to be there – we are not disappointed with Mark. Unfortunately, that’s paralympic sport.

“It is very unfortunate that Mark is not going to be around as he is such a legend”.