Rohan goes flat out in search of London gold
Arctic gusts and monsoon downpours are reviled by every athlete whose training obliges them onto the country’s highways and byways but the latest unseasonal chill is that bit harder to take for a hand-cyclist who is paralysed from the chest down.
‘For me, without movement of the legs for circulation, it’s very hard to stay warm,” Rohan explained. “During the endurance [training] phase you’ve got four hours on the road and facing four hours in that weather even just affects your mental state.”
If it isn’t Ireland’s schizophrenic climate, it is the everyday reality of dogs chasing him or the danger of being hit by a passing vehicle as he guns down the back roads around the Westmeath village of Ballinahown at an average speed of 35kph.
All in a day’s work and, hey, it’s not forever.
Rohan spent two months in Portugal training earlier this year and is off to Majorca on Monday. Pretty soon, he’ll be embarking on a competitive continental tour that will include stops in Italy, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Italy again and Spain. After that, London is calling.
Last year, he became the first person to win all six races in the UCI World Cup series and he will have two opportunities to medal at the legendary Brands Hatch circuit in Kent as he lines up for the time trial and road race at the Paralympics.
His enthusiasm for the latter is all too obvious.
“A great thing for me when I started was the fact that I was new and I wasn’t expected to do much in the group but there was a former world and Olympic champion, an Austrian guy, who didn’t take too kindly to me and he started spitting at me.
“That’s something that no one really prepares you for. It is just like in football if someone steps on your toes. I kind of thrive on it. It is very easy to find motivation for training when you have someone like that.”
Rohan’s engagement in his sport is total. All-consuming.
When he took leave of absence from his job to train full-time he had visions of picking up the guitar or learning a language. As it is, he barely has time to squeeze in his distance learning course with Setanta College.
Twenty hours per week on the road is just the beginning. Every four hours on the bike requires two hours preparation before and a warm-down afterwards. Add to that a strict diet, logistics... it all adds up.
He is stumped when asked what he does for fun aside from sport but that’s how it has always been. Before and after the accident.
It was 2001 when his motorbike slammed into a tree on the way back from a Sunday soccer match. It left him paralysed from the chest down and with a litany of injuries — broken ribs, collar bone, sternum and a torn aorta.
An U21 footballer with Westmeath at the time, he took to managing the local soccer team once his long stint in rehab was behind him but life on the sidelines didn’t compute at the age of 23, so he turned to basketball and ended up playing for Ireland.
It was in 2007 when he first got on a hand cycle, bought over the internet to help his training. The connection was immediate. The sense of freedom it gave him, the opportunity to forget about his disability, was a revelation. It doesn’t come cheap. The bike he lines up on in London will cost up to €12,000 but Rohan’sabilities have attracted a strong stable of sponsors, including Renault and Sky Sports, and that brings expectations. There won’t be a single competitor on that track that he hasn’t beaten before but this is his first Paralympics.
He knows that world records tumble at these Games and that there are six or seven other guys competing for gold.
Pressure? “I don’t really suffer from pressure,” he says.
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