Mel Pemble is excited — and nervous — as she prepares to head to the 2024 Paris Paralympics games at the end of August.
The 24-year-old from Victoria is no stranger to the pressures of competing in the Olympics. She’s been there before.
In PyeongChang in 2018, it was Para alpine, but this will be her first time in Para cycling. Pemble switched sports in 2020.
Ten months ago, once the possibility of going to Paris was on the table, Pemble moved to Beaumont, Que., to begin training. While she loves the Victoria track, she says she can only really train there in the summer and realized year-round training would increase her chances of getting to Paris.
It all paid off three weeks ago when she discovered she had qualified for the Canadian Paralympic Team.
On The Island8:00Mel Pemble heads to the 2024 Paralympic Games
Local athlete, Mel Pemble, talks with On The Island about heading back to the paralympic games—-this time as a cyclist!
What is it like to shift gears and go back to the Games after all this time? CBC News spoke with Pemble to find out.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
How are you feeling about the upcoming Paris Games?
It’s absolutely amazing to have it be so close, but there is also that kind of daunting feeling. Making the team is something I’ve worked towards for the past four years.
But even just watching the Olympics now, it’s getting that excitement going. I’m squeezing it in between training sessions. There is always time to cheer on the Olympic athletes.
I understand you used to be a skier. Can you tell us a bit about your athletic journey? How did you transition to cycling?
Yeah, that’s correct. My first sport was in Para alpine.
I was 14 when I was invited to a talent search at the Canadian Sports Institute. It was there that I was picked up for cycling.
I initially just used cycling to cross-train in the summer, to train for skiing. I competed a little bit, but the schedules clashed pretty early on, and I had to pick one over the other. As my skiing career went on, I just kind of accepted that maybe cycling wasn’t going to be — it was always going to be on the back shelf kind of thing.
When 2020 came around, it was a bit of a forced reflection on whether I wanted to continue skiing or retire. I realized I wasn’t quite done with the athlete life and decided to pick up cycling again and see where it could lead.
WATCH | Mel Pemble competes at the Parapan American Games:
Mel Pemble of Victoria, B.C., roars back to win the gold medal in the women’s 3,000-metre C1-3 individual pursuit at the Parapan American Games in Santiago.
At what point in the last four years did you realize that you might actually have a shot at the Olympics?
As soon as I started, I set my sights on Paris. It’s always been in the back of my mind.
But I think it was really my international debut in 2022, where I was at the point where I was like, “OK, this is looking a bit more realistic now.”
I did the Para cycling Track World Championships and came away with two gold medals and a world record.
There’s still a lot more work to do, but I think that was the moment that I realized that getting a chance to get to the Paris games was a huge possibility.
What does training look like? Do you train on a stationary bike or a track?
I’m primarily a track cyclist, so my events are on the velodrome. Two years ago, we changed my training to be heavily focused on the track sprinter, as we found out that’s where more of my talents lie.
And does your intense training challenge your health or help you lead a healthier lifestyle?
It definitely is a balance, and there is always the chance to overtrain. But luckily, I have a team that knows what they’re doing, and they know where the balance lies.
If I’m having a rougher day on the bike, then we know how to dial it back and refocus for the next training session. To have coaches who understand that we are humans first and then athletes — with other things going on in our lives that could affect training — is very helpful.
Yes, sometimes it’s going to have to be a bit more focused on sport, and life is going to have to take a little bit of a back burner for a bit, but it’s also about not having everything that you are working towards be completely focused on that one thing.
So what’s your goal going into the Paralympic Games this time?
I did have the opportunity to go to the 2018 Paralympics, and I feel like going to those ones was just to gain experience.
I’m a different athlete, six years on now. And it is obviously a different sport, so this feels very much a new opportunity.
I am aiming for a podium. It’s been something that has looked on the horizon for a little bit, but after these past World Championships in March, it looks a little bit more realistic to have as a goal.
We will see, anything can happen.