Carol Cooke

Carol Cooke is a Canadian-born Australian cyclist, swimmer and rower and won a gold medal in the mixed time trial T1-2 at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

A keen swimmer, she was part of the Canadian national swimming team and was hoping to make it to the Moscow 1980 Olympics before her country boycotted the games. She moved to Australia in 1994, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, and took up rowing in 2006, in which she narrowly missed out on being part of the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, before switching to cycling.

In the early 1980’s, Cooke took up triathlon, coming fifth in her first competition, the 1985 World Police and Fire Games, which she qualified for due to working for the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force.

She participated in several masters' tournaments in swimming, winning five medals (four gold and a silver) in the Athletes With Disability Division at the 2005 World Masters Games. In 2006, at the age of 44, she qualified for the Telstra Commonwealth Games Swimming Trials; reaching the finals of the 50m breaststroke multi-disability event.

Carol was a national-level swimmer in Canada while she was growing up and with an unstoppable nature and a passion for sport, Carol took up competitive rowing in December 2006, made the Australian rowing team in 2008 and 2009 where she competed at the World Rowing Championships, coming away with a sixth-place finish. She has held a scholarship at the Victorian Institute of Sport since 2007.

Shortly after taking up cycling, Cooke won both the trial and road racing events at the 2011 Australian Para-Cycling Road Championships. She won gold medals in both the road race and road trial competitions at the 2011 Para-Cycling Road World Cup in Australia and silver medals in the same events at that year's UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships in Denmark.