Mel Pemble of Victoria, likely on her way to becoming a rare Summer and Winter Paralympian, picked up a silver medal along the way Thursday in the 2023 Para Pan Am Games in Santiago, Chile.
Pemble was second in the C1-5 cycling individual time trial, just 0.701 seconds behind gold medallist Sabrina Da Silva Custodia of Brazil.
“I’m feeling amazing, mainly for the personal best and, of course, the medal is a bonus,” Pemble said in a statement.
“I knew my times, and how it reflected on the competitors here, but anything can happen on race day.”
Pemble, who was born with cerebral palsy and immigrated to Victoria from Lancashire, England, in 2009, also skied on Mount Washington while growing up and made it to ski in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics. She turned to cycling on the 1994 Commonwealth Games velodrome in Colwood and now sets her sights on the velodrome track for the 2024 Paris Summer Paralympics.
Island athletes won two more silver medals Thursday when sa国际传媒 was beaten 57-51 by the U.S. in the gold-medal final of wheelchair rugby. Canadian co-captain Trevor Hirschfield of Parksville, and player Byron Green of Victoria, rolled to the podium but it was the Americans who earned the automatic berth into the 2024 Paris Paralympics while Hirschfield, Green and their Canadian teammates must go through the last-chance qualifier next year.
The silver medal added to the veteran Hirschfield’s medal case. The 40-year-old Islander competed in the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Paralympics with silver and bronze medals. The former Oceanside hockey player and BCHL Junior A prospect with the Cowichan Valley Capitals, before a van accident in 2000 while visiting his grandparents in Sicamous left him paraplegic, also has gold and silver from the 2015 Toronto and 2019 Lima Para Pan Am Games.
