Israel Hilario Rimas

After the best season of his career to date in 2015, Rimas will be optimistic of winning Peru’s first Paralympic medal in 12 years at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

In 2015, he won his first ever world title with victory in the road race C2 at the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Nottwil, Switzerland, to compliment the time trial bronze he won earlier in the event. Days after competing in the World Championships, he won silver in the road race at the Toronto 2015 Parapan American Games in an event that combined a number of classes.

Rimas made the podium at all four UCI World Cup road races in 2015, taking victory in Maniago, Italy, and Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. He also took time trial silver in Elzach, Germany, and bronze in Yverdon-les-Bains.

He finished the 2015 UCI road world rankings in a career high third. In 2016 to win Paralympic gold in Rio he will most likely have to beat the two men who finished above him in the 2015 rankings – Spain’s Maurice Eckhard Tio and Russia’s Arslan Gilmutdinov.

Although he took up para-cycling in 2010, Rio 2016 will be his first Paralympic Games.