Name: Kate O’Brien
Country: Canada
Sport: Para Cycling C4 Classification
Previous Paralympic experience: Tokyo 2021
Social media: Instagram
Who is Kate O’Brien?
On Thursday, Kate O’Brien became a Paralympic medalist for the second time. She raced through the National Velodrome in the women’s C4-5 500-Meter Time Trial and put up a fierce ride at 36.873 seconds that held up for a bronze medal.
Her efforts netted the first medal won for Canada at these Games and was part of a 2-3 finish for Team LGBTQ, joining silver medalist Marie Patouillet of France.
O’Brien has proudly worn Canada’s red and white in international sport for more than a decade as a bobsled brakeman and a track cyclist. In 2016, she was part of Canada’s cycling squad for the Olympics in Rio.
In 2017, a blown tire during a track cycling demonstration led to an accident that nearly ended her life. What followed was a period of being told what she couldn’t do. From that time, a proud athlete responded by finding a different way to do what had been said to be impossible.
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O’Brien fought back from her injuries and seizures and forged a new path in para-cycling, making an immediate impact. In her debut at the 2020 UCI World Para-Cycling Track Championships, she won the C4 Classification 500-meter time trial and set a world record while doing it.
The next year, she was in Tokyo at the Paralympics. She ended up with silver and started a streak in the process.
At the World Championships in 2022, she pushed through pain from a training accident and came back from a bout with COVID to finish with a silver again. In 2023, she was again competitive but just short of gold in second place. After the 2023 worlds, she set the challenge before her with Paris looming.
“Still have some things to work on, but this has given some good information on what we need to hit a bit,” she said in a post-race interview with CBC. “My plan moving forward is to have some stable training and therapy, get some equipment fitting and come back to win gold next year.”
Yet given where she was in 2017, four medals in elite-class competition since is quite a comeback already.
Kate O’Brien at the Paris Paralympic Games
O’Brien enters these Games backed by a track record of past success in competition and she’s also bolstered by two special additions to her support team. In October 2022, O’Brien married longtime partner Meghan Grant, a former national track cycling team member, in a beautiful wedding in Scotland. In December 2023, the couple welcomed their first child, a son named Robin.
O’Brien also enters competition with a realization gained through what she’s endured since 2017 through struggle and success. An athlete who once saw herself as “fearless” has had to struggle through fear and doubt while continuing to push toward being at the top of the podium.
This is one area where being a spouse and a mom has provided a different perspective. At the end of the 2022 season, and a few weeks after her wedding, O’Brien posted on this shift in her thinking.
“While I forced myself back onto the bike, my eyes were opened to the reptilian brain that I have to overcome each time I train or compete,” she noted on her Instagram. “The brain that has been squashed into thinking that I am exactly the same as I was before. The fact is, I am not.”
“The fact is, I’m competitive, and I can’t help but compare my race times to what I used to be able to do before I became a partially-deaf, spastic hemiparetic C4 with epilepsy,” she continued. “I’m trying to accept that I have disabilities, and am starting fresh, but it’s definitely still a work in progress. Hard to think of, but so much more enjoyable than living in the past.”
Her ride Thursday to bronze combined a fresh outlook with classic fearless Kate O’Brien. A silly smile came across her face on her cooldown lap as she looked pleased with the effort. It was the sign of the commitment she made to herself when she pushed to get into competition trim at the start of this year.
“Now my challenge as I head to these Paris Paralympic Games is why not me again?” O’Brien posted on Instagram prior to leaving for Paris last week. “Ready to be the fastest engine I can be, winning, losing, whatever, my goal is to leave every ounce of ATP on that track.
“All I have to do is ride — no need for thinking. Just let the muscles do the work. I look forward to what it comes to, whatever that may be.”
What came was a Paralympic medal and another stanza of her great comeback story.
