Siobhan Terry celebrates her silver medal in the elimination race. Photo / Photosport
Para cyclist Siobhan Terry is targeting further success in the velodrome after a stunning transition from the swimming pool with four medals at the UCI Para Cycling Track World Championships in Rio de Janeiro.
Terry had grown up chasing glory in Para swimming, but seeking a change, hung up the goggles in 2023 to focus on Para cycling.
After two years of hard work, her big breakthrough was selection in the New Zealand Para Cycling Team to compete in Brazil.
Her inclusion was justified after winning silvers in the C4 scratch and elimination and bronzes in the C4 sprint and 1km time trial.
Terry’s haul was part of 13 NZ medals, third behind Great Britain and Australia.
“I had no expectation on results or outcomes, but I guess you have an expectation on the effort that you’re going to put in, so I knew I was going to give it my all,” Terry said.
“The outcome was completely unexpected. I felt confident in my ability to give it my all.
“I’d done all the training. I learned as much as I could, and I just felt in a good mindset to go out there and really enjoy myself. There was lots of enjoyment.”
Sport has always been in Terry’s blood, despite the challenges she faces to compete.
She was born with bilateral talipes (clubfoot), which means her left foot was completely twisted at birth. She’s since had operations to turn it back around.
However, it mher left leg is about 5cm shorter than her right, meaning she permanently walks on her tiptoe.
Originally from Rotorua, Terry relocated with her family to live in Hobart as a toddler. She didn’t let clubfoot set her back, competing in numerous sports including cross country, ballet and hip-hop dancing.
Terry moved back to NZ as a teenager, but found herself out of sport until a teacher told her that she’d be eligible to compete as a Para athlete at the NZ Secondary Schools’ Cross Country Championships.
There she claimed a gold medal but the challenges of running with her disability were demanding, so she took up Para swimming.
“My mum knew that I loved swimming as a kid, and so she’s the one who actually set out to find me a swim coach,” Terry said.
“I really enjoyed being in the water, and it was a lot less impactful on my foot as well, so I could do it.”
Terry specialised in freestyle and backstroke and in that time she found a sense of belonging, while also competing nationally and winning medals in the S10 category.
“I gained so much and I met a wider community,” Terry said.
“For me it’s an achievement just to find that sense of belonging within a space and within the disability sector as well.”
In 2020 she experienced a “Have a Go day” for Para cycling and attended a Para Development Camp, but with challenges such as studying for her degree in sport and recreation and Covid, she stuck with swimming.
Two years later, Terry was asked if she would like to race in a Para cycling competition in Invercargill, so she opted to give it a go and hasn’t looked back.
“I needed a new challenge and something new to work towards,” Terry said.
“An email came up that there was a track cycling competition down at Invercargill in 10weeks’ time and it felt like the right time.
“It was the need for something new, the need for a new challenge and I still had that dream in the back of my mind of potentially going to the Paralympics one day and this provided me with a space to try achieve that.”
She tried to juggle both Para sports, before opting to fully focus on cycling.
While competing at the Los Angeles Paralympics is firmly on the radar, Terry is hoping to build on her impressive year on the bike.
Terry works for the Hallberg Foundation, within the disability sector, which allows her to give back and help support kids in the Bay of Plenty who have dreams and aspirations of competing in Para sports.
“It is a really rewarding job,” Terry said. “With that comes the drive to want to support people in finding their own sense of belonging.
“Whether that be within sports or whether that be within something else, I think that’s something that we strive to do, is to support that.
“Especially for those young people who haven’t quite found the community or been introduced to it or haven’t met anyone with a disability before, then that’s a really powerful thing in bringing them in and being a friendly face to kind of show them what it’s all about and show them just how positive and rewarding it can be.”
Ben Francis is an Auckland-based reporter for the NZ Herald who covers breaking sports news.