WHEN Carol Cooke was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she was told to go home and get her affairs in order before she became incapacitated.
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Twenty years later, and now a Paralympic champion, Ms Cooke has successfully led the charge to include para-cycling in the Cycling Australia Road National Championships and, for the first time next summer, for para-athletes to be contest the road title on the notorious Mount Buninyong climb.
Now Ms Cooke, a championships ambassador, is rapt MS awareness will be now put on the nationals stage.
Cycling Australia has named Multiple Sclerosis (the support body for people living with the neurological condition) as the charity partner for the annual Gran Fondo Championship in Buninyong on January 5.
“MS is such a hidden disease – if only I had a dollar for everytime someone told me ‘oh, but you look so good’. Hopefully it will bring education to the wider community about MS and fundraising because MS has no cure and no known cause,” Ms Cooke said. “There’s so many different stories within the para community. We all think we’re pretty awesome. But it will be nice to have MS at the forefront of the wider community’s minds.”
Ms Cooke hoped the challenge of contesting the Gran Fondo for able-bodied cycling enthusiasts might put into perspective a little about the challenge of living every day with MS.
It was one morning after competing in Hobart at the masters swimming nationals in 1998 that Ms Cooke awoke with disturbing balance problems and double vision.
Multiple sclerosis affects the central nervous system, interfering with nerve impulses within the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves.
Determined to focus on what her body could do, Ms Cooke transformed into an international para-rower before taking up para-cycling in the trike class in 2011.
While the para road race titles were set in Cardigan, there was a strong core of para-athletes entered in the Gran Fondo to prove to the national sporting body they could tackle Mount Buninyong. The Gran Fondo was cancelled this year due to extreme heat.
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