Cyclist Paul Wood (USA) Grabs the First Taipei Gold - 1000m sprint
The weather was quite hot and everybody was sweating but this did not stop them from watching one of the most exciting games in Deaflympics: Cycling Road. Familiar and new cyclists were reeling in the failures and glories of their cycling races today. The United States cycling team started off strong in the morning’s individual races. However, the most exciting cyclists among them were none other than the Gold medalist, Paul Wood from USA, who claimed ten medals from the previous five Deaflympics. And today he grabbed the Gold medal from his Russian opponent Kirill Ivanovich Pestov who then won the Silver medal in the narrow 1000m Sprint race.
When asked about his biggest test as a cyclist in Taipei, he replied candidly, “In this road there is no room for any error and everything must be precise. For an instance my teammate made an error today when he made a curve and slipped. It cost him a medal. It happened to me in Melbourne when I made a grave error and lost the medal. I ranked second and my competitor ranked fifteenth but I made a mistake at 200 meters in race and I lost. I felt sick. So my biggest challenge here is to be precise and careful.” However, as careful as he was, he was not fazed by other teams as his biggest competitor is his own teammates.
This is his last Deaflympics as an athlete but he felt proud that he won the Gold medal. Paul Wood said, “My age doesn’t matter as long I set my mind to it.”
The weather was quite hot and everybody was sweating but this did not stop them from watching one of the most exciting games in Deaflympics: Cycling Road. Familiar and new cyclists were reeling in the failures and glories of their cycling races today. The United States cycling team started off strong in the morning’s individual races. However, the most exciting cyclists among them were none other than the Gold medalist, Paul Wood from USA, who claimed ten medals from the previous five Deaflympics. And today he grabbed the Gold medal from his Russian opponent Kirill Ivanovich Pestov who then won the Silver medal in the narrow 1000m Sprint race.
When asked about his biggest test as a cyclist in Taipei, he replied candidly, “In this road there is no room for any error and everything must be precise. For an instance my teammate made an error today when he made a curve and slipped. It cost him a medal. It happened to me in Melbourne when I made a grave error and lost the medal. I ranked second and my competitor ranked fifteenth but I made a mistake at 200 meters in race and I lost. I felt sick. So my biggest challenge here is to be precise and careful.” However, as careful as he was, he was not fazed by other teams as his biggest competitor is his own teammates.
This is his last Deaflympics as an athlete but he felt proud that he won the Gold medal. Paul Wood said, “My age doesn’t matter as long I set my mind to it.”
