One of the finest examples of attitude I've ever seen - Carol Cooke AM

I wanted to shine a spotlight on a wonderful friend of mine.

Who also just happens to be a 3 x Gold medal Paralympian and 9 x World Champion in Cycling, among many other medals and accolades. Oh, and she has MS too!

Carol is a remarkable human being. And as I write this, she is lying in a hospital bed in Tokyo, waiting for her punctured lung to heal before she can return home to Melbourne.

Her 3rd Paralympic Games started off well with a Silver Medal in the Women’s road time trial, giving it ‘everything she had’. Two days later she achieved her 1st ever DNF in the Women’s road race due to an unavoidable crash.

The reigning gold medalist in the event could have told the story many ways. But the way Carol chose to see it and tell it is nothing short of inspirational.

I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing her Facebook post I’m referring to that she wrote to update everyone after the crash, but here goes :)

“Hi everyone thought I’d just send this message as I don’t think I can answer all the messages sent. Thank you for all of them!

First I’m sorry for scaring the hell out of everyone! Scared the hell out of myself.

It wasn’t Marie-Eve’s fault, she hit a slightly raised manhole cover and because it was wet lost control flipping. Well you all saw it so no need to describe it!

Needless to say the first thing I thought of was getting back on! The mechanical staff put my chain back on, changed my rear wheel and off I went only to discover that I was really having a hard time breathing!

But that pigheaded and determined woman in me said I could do this. Let me tell you she just couldn’t. It took everything I had to get back to the pits.

From there our amazing staff took over and my greatest thanks goes out to Keren Faulkner and Dr Geoff for organising things so quickly.

Within minutes of getting to the hospital I had X-rays and a CT done. Talk about efficiency!

I have no broken bones but do have a lot of skin off and a pneumothorax on my left lung. So the decision was made to put in a chest tube. (Note to self: in future if that has to happen again ask them to knock me out) Bugger that hurt!

I may not have won but I did have 2 firsts today 1 I’ve never had a DNF beside my name and 2 I’ve never had such a big crash in a race! So I’ve got those out of the way

Not sure how long I’ll be here but thank God for Google Translate!!!

Again thanks for the messages I have really appreciated them.”

Carol, you are a brilliant example to all of us. Thank you!