Alistair Donohoe missed out on a medal but won the hearts of Australia after one of the most courageous performances seen at the Tokyo Paralympics.
Robbed of the gold medal at the 2016 Rio Games when Yehor Dementyev collided with him and knocked him off his bike metres from the finish of the road race, Donohoe suffered an even crueller fate this time.
Donohoe crashed again when the same Ukrainian rival slipped and fell on the slippery Fuji International Speedway circuit and he unsuccessfully tried to swerve past him.
Then a few minutes later, Donohoe lost control and tumbled to the bitumen again, falling way behind the leading pack.
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Bloodied and bruised, the Aussie got back in the saddle and chased ever harder, eventually catching up to give himself an outside chance of winning the 92km race.
“I felt like Steven Bradbury there, like skating on ice. It was so random,” Donohoe told Channel 7.
“I got around him and I was like ‘oh sweet;’ suddenly I’m on the ground too. Get back up, get back on, come up a hill, slip again. These wet conditions bring out patches of oil on the racetrack and you can’t predict them.
“So after that second lap, I was so skittish around the corners just to be sure that I didn‘t crash again. Had I been luckier it would have been a different race, I was feeling so good.”
But it wasn’t to be. While his heart and mind were willing, it was Donohoe’s body that ultimately let him down as the effect of playing catch up caused him to start cramping severely.
As hard as he tried and as much as he wanted to, Donohoe couldn’t keep up with the leaders in the final stages of the race, so resigned himself to again missing out on an elusive gold medal after winning two silvers at Rio and a silver and bronze in Tokyo in his other events.
“I went soul searching there for a while. I dug so deep because you‘ve got to be in it to win it and you’ve got to spend your biscuits,” he said.
“I had the energy but once you start cramping there’s nothing you can do. You’ve got to back off to your pace. I couldn’t go with it with the accelerations.”
One of the most recognisable riders on the team because of his trademark mullet, Donohoe was fighting back tears as he crossed the line fifth, but not because of the injuries he sustained during the race.
“This race was for my mate Will. He committed suicide about two months ago and I‘ve been holding it together up until the Games,” Donohoe said. “Now it’s over. I can let it out. It feels so good.
“I love bike racing. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You can‘t control crashes. It’s a part of the sport. I love it and I think Will would have been proud of this race.
“There’s nothing you can do, but how good‘s racing? How good’s this? This is living.”
Australia did pick up one final medal in cycling when Paige Greco finished third in the women’s C1-C3 road race after at Fuji International Speedway but Alistair Donohoe missed the podium after winning gold in the individual pursuit and bronze in the time trial.
“I‘m very happy to be on the podium again, and for all my races in my first Paralympics,” said Greco.
“It‘s been an amazing Games and I never want to forget it. It’s been such an awesome ride. I want to keep doing this as long as I can.”
Australia’s toughest Paralympian has been told she won’t be allowed to travel home with the rest of her teammates next week after puncturing her lung in a horrifying bike crash in Japan.
While most of the remaining members of the Aussie team in Tokyo will fly home on Monday and Tuesday, Carole Cooke will remain behind until doctors give her the all-clear to leave hospital.
The 60-year-old — who became the second oldest woman to win a Paralympic medal for Australia when she claimed silver in the T1-2 time trial in Japan — is currently recovering in Juntendo University Hospital.
Japanese doctors have inserted a chest drain to help repair her collapsed lung after she crashed heavily on Thursday.
Cooke, who has multiple sclerosis so rides a modified tricycle which has more stability than a two-wheeled bike, also sustained heavy bruising and grazes in the accident — which happened during a heavy downpour, but says she’s feeling fine.
“I can breathe normally and it doesn’t hurt,” she said from her hospital bed.
“I’m battered and bruised but I have had so many messages from around the world — which is incredible.”
The Australian team’s chef de mission Kate McLoughlin said that while Cooke would not be able to return home as planned, arrangements were being made for her to travel back as soon as she is released from hospital.
“Unfortunately the nature of her injury means Carol will not be able to fly home with her teammates,” McLoughlin said.
“But we are working with team medical staff and relevant government agencies to co-ordinate her stay in Japan and her safe return to Australia.”
Robbed of gold at Rio in 2016, Alistair Donohoe has been waiting five years to settle a score. Finally, he gets his chance.
The Aussie cyclist should have won the Class 5 road race at the last Paralympics but missed out altogether after being dudded by an opponent then a technical ruling.
And it’s still eating away at him as he prepares for the chance to atone in Tokyo.
“There’s hardly been a day in the last five years where I haven’t thought about what happened in Rio, it’s been the fuel I’ve used to prepare for Tokyo,” he said.
“Whenever I think about that incident I just get very frustrated but I guess that’s sport and sometimes you have no control over things.
“It also puts a lot of internal pressure on me to repeat that performance here — but hopefully without getting taken out.”
The incident Donohoe is referring to happened at the end of the road race in Brazil. He had been patiently biding his time in second place behind Ukraine’s Yegor Dementyev when he made his move right before the finish.
But just as he was overtaking Dementyev, the Ukrainian shifted back into his line, colliding with the Australian and knocking both riders off their bikes just metres from the finish.
Bleeding profusely, Donohoe got back on his feet and stepped across the line first before getting his wounds tended to.
He thought he had won but it was only later that he was told he hadn’t because the rules state that a rider is not deemed to have finished until their bicycle crosses the line.
By the time he fetched his bike, it was too late and he was relegated to fifth, with the gold going to Daniel Abraham of the Netherlands. Dementyev was disqualified for causing the crash but that didn’t help Donohoe’s case.
“His tactic was to stop me coming past but I was seeing gold and I was not going to stop for anything,” Donohoe said.
“It was really unfortunate to be robbed of gold like that but it’s just one of those things where you have to get back on the horse.
“I don’t necessarily hold it against him even though it was the wrong thing to do but hopefully we can just let the bike do the talking this time.”
Donohoe, who rides with an impaired right arm after he permanently injured his bicep and tricep when he got caught in a tree swing at a creek as a teenager, has won the road race world championship three times.
In all, he’s won eight world titles, on the road and track, but is still chasing an elusive Paralympic gold after collecting three silvers and a bronze from Rio and Tokyo.
Donohoe is one of the most identifiable and gregarious characters in the Australian Paralympic team, not the least because of his hairstyle.
If gold medals were handed out for mullets and moustaches, he reckons he would win every time — proclaiming that he has everyone covered — including golfer Cam Smith and Olympic sprinter Rohan Browning.
“It’s a deadset mullet, that’s the only way to describe it,” he said.
“It is iconic. It gets responses, that’s for sure. I’ve got the whole nine yards and it would out do any mullets we’ve seen at the Games so far.
“There was that sprinter (Browning) at the Olympics, they called him the flying mullet, I looked at it in disgust.
“And the golfer, that’s not too bad, that’s not a terrible mullet for sure but I feel like I can up him.”