Siobhan Terry, 25, won four medals at her debut world championship in para-cycling in Rio de Janeiro. Photo / SWPix
Siobhan Terry, a hard-working and talented para-athlete, always wanted to go to the Paralympics or world championships.
As a teenager, she was the first para-swimmer from Rotorua to compete at a New Zealand swimming championship, competing at her first event with a broken collarbone, an injury she suffered playing touch rugby.
She had just given up athletics because of the toll it took on her leg. She was born with her left foot turned inwards, a condition known as club foot. She walks on tiptoe on that foot, wears a splint on her leg and competes in the C4 category for those with limb deficiencies.
But Terry, 25, has become a crack sportswoman. She is the first New Zealander in any sport to win four medals on her pinnacle debut at a senior world championship, when she competed in Rio de Janeiro in October at the UCI para-cycling track world championships. But cycling is a sport she took up only in 2023.
Pinnacle competitions usually refer to world championships or Olympic Games.
Terry has also medalled at the non-pinnacle Oceania championships. In addition to her medal haul in Brazil, Terry set the New Zealand record in the C4 1000m time trial for the third time that year. She also won a silver medal in her first event at worlds, the elimination event, where track cyclists drop off each lap until one is left. It was the first time that event was held at world championship level. She won bronze medals in the 10km time trial and the 200m sprint.
“To be honest, the medals were unexpected, although the performance wasn’t,” Terry says. “I didn’t know where I sat on the world stage in terms of my times, so it was quite a surprise that my times ended up being quite up there.
“When I first stood on the podium after the elimination race, I was in shock. Then it happened again on day two, day three and again on day four. I felt very proud, but I was shocked to win four medals.
“I didn’t really see myself in that calibre of an athlete, and to be able to stand on the podium next to them was unreal. My coach expected me to come home with two medals, but he didn’t tell me that. So, he was really stoked for me when I came back with four.”
Terry, who holds a bachelor’s degree in sports and recreation from Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology, has tried her hand in multiple sports. At 20, she won the archery title at the Halberg Games, the annual three-day sports event for young people with a physical or visual impairment. She was also a member of the Halberg Youth Council. But before cycling it was swimming that was her sport for eight years.
She says cycling is quite different to swimming. “I was very upper body dominant, I didn’t do a lot with my legs in swimming – so I can actually use my disability in a positive and exciting way, and I get to challenge my mindset on what I believe I am capable of.”
Few in any sport have won four medals in individual events on their pinnacle debut at a world championship – senior or junior. More have done so at an Olympic Games debut. Australian Tahlia Clayton-Goodie also won four cycling medals in Rio, her first track championship, but she has competed previously at a road cycling world championship. Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh and Pieter Coetzee, from South Africa, both won four medals at their debut world junior championships in 2022.
More, like Jesse Owens in 1936, have won four medals at their first Olympics or Paralympics as swimmer Sophie Pascoe did in 2008 after competing at a world championship aged 13. McIntosh did the opposite, winning four medals at the 2022 world championships post-Olympics. Eve Rimmer, in 1968, the first woman selected on to a New Zealand Paralympic team, won four medals in track and field and swimming on debut. American swimmer Trischa Zorn won seven at her debut Paralympics in 1980.
Terry’s stunning performance at Rio was a key reason the five-member New Zealand team took 13 medals, the highest number per athlete, with only Great Britain and Australia winning more.
Terry’s times may well have her selected for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow later this year and she is also now receiving funding from High Performance Sport New Zealand via the Taps (tailored athlete pathway support) programme.
She is about to move to Cambridge to train with Brendon Cameron, Cycling New Zealand’s high-performance coach. Last year was the first complete year the Cycling New Zealand high-performance operation in Cambridge had the para-cycling programme fully integrated. Terry’s position at the Halberg Foundation may be affected. For the past four years she has worked five days a week as a regional adviser in the Bay of Plenty.
It had been at the Oceania championships in February 2023, just a month after first jumping out of a swimming pool and hopping on a racing bike, that Terry thought she could give the sport a good crack. At the following Oceania championships, in 2025, she had just finished the elimination event before having a major crash that kept her from cycling completely for two months.
“I ended up with concussion after my last race at Oceanias. I was off training for a couple of months and didn’t get back to fulltime work until the end of June, or to full fitness on the bike,” she says.
Four months later Terry stood for multiple world championship medal ceremonies. Before the competition her three bikes were modified to accommodate her club foot, with her left leg 5cm shorter than her right. Her left pedal crank was shortened so her foot can reach the pedal. She also wears a custom shoe when competing to avoid needing a leg splint or prosthetic. She has had six operations to date, some major, to straighten her foot as much as is surgically possible.
Terry would love to compete at this year’s Commonwealth Games. She must be ranked in the top five among all para classes or get a bipartite, or discretionary, invitation to be selected. At Rio, Paralympian Nicole Murray was the only other New Zealander to get four medals; three silvers and a bronze.
“I’m hopeful and I’m training as if I’m going,” Terry says. “And cycling has helped spark that belief in myself again that the Paralympics could still be a potential.”
So, it’s the Olympic cycling track in Los Angeles that is the goal.
“I would love to give it a crack. Rio fills me with reassurance that I am on the right track. I still reckon I’ve got a lot in the bank. I’m just scraping the surface. I’m still homing in on my position on the bike and building an endurance base, so still got little bit of work to do.”
Terry says it’s exciting how much there is to explore in para sport and to discover what is possible.
“It will challenge you and test your limits, but it will also help you to discover your own strength and give you more joy than you could imagine.
“Para sport helped me to find my sense of belonging.”
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.