Carol Cooke

Carol Cooke’s winning streak on the road came to an end in 2018. The USA’s Paralympic medallist Jill Walsh beat her in both the women’s time trial and road race T2 at the Road World Championships held in Maniago, Italy.

It will be interesting to see how this rivalry develops as Tokyo 2020 approaches.

Until now, the Australian had dominated her category. In 2017, she took two golds at the Road Worlds in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. A year earlier, she won two Paralympic titles at Rio 2016; retaining her mixed time trial T1-2 gold from London 2012 and topping the podium in the road race T1-2.

But before becoming a cyclist and representing Australia, Canadian-born Cooke was a keen swimmer.

She was part of the Canadian national swimming team and was hoping to compete at the Moscow 1980 Olympics before her country boycotted the Games. She moved to Australia in 1994 and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998.

In 2006, Cook took up Para rowing and narrowly missed out on being part of the Australian team at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. Following this disappointment, she switched to cycling.

Shortly after taking up the sport, Cooke won both the trial and road racing events at the 2011 Australian Road Championships.

She won gold medals in both the road race and time trial at the 2011 Road World Cup in Australia and silver medals in the same events at that year's Road World Championships in Denmark.

In 2013 and 2014 she won both the time trial and road race events at the Road World Championships.