The adventures of 2024 will begin early for 16 U.S. Para-cyclists.

For the first time in more than 10 years, U.S. Paralympics Cycling athletes are heading Down Under for a world cup competition.

The first road world cup of the season is set for Jan. 13-17 in Adelaide, Australia, jump starting a season that includes the Paralympic Games Paris 2024 less than nine months from now and the world championships after that in Switzerland. Qualification points for the Paralympic Games will be up for grabs in Adelaide.

Getting to Adelaide will be adventurous enough. The city, which is located on the southern coast of Australia about 850 miles west of 2000 Olympic and Paralympic host Sydney, is nearly 9,000 miles away from the U.S. Paralympics Cycling home base of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“The plane travel itself, it’s very far,” said Ian Lawless, director of U.S. Paralympics Cycling. “It will be difficult for some of our athletes who aren’t used to sitting on a plane for a 15-hour flight.”

And then there are the moving parts.

“We have access to less equipment,” Lawless said. “Won’t have our team equipment on hand. Athletes will have to race on the equipment they bring with them. In Europe, we have spare equipment, spare parts.”

Then, there’s the time.

Adelaide is 17.5 hours ahead of Colorado Springs. Not even the top of the hour is the same. Due to an agreement more than 100 years ago, Adelaide was placed in a time zone that puts it 30 minutes behind Sydney.

And it’ll be hot.

Adelaide is in the midst of its summer season. The temperature is forecast to hit the mid-90s on the first day of competition.

Allison Jones, an eight-time Paralympian who is based in Colorado Springs, can’t wait.

“It’s averaging 40 degrees right now in Colorado Springs, which makes riding a bit unbearable,” said Jones, who has eight Paralympic medals between cycling and alpine skiing. “I want to say I am tougher, but I am not.

“It’d be nice to not worry about how many layers I need,” she added, “or if I’m in the sunshine or in the shade because there’s a 20-degree difference between the two.”

Instead, it’ll be like Texas. In July.

“It’s expected to be very hot,” Lawless said. “I think that may pose a challenge for some of our athletes, but I think some of our athletes are also looking forward to getting into the heat. I think some of them are excited to go, get away from snow country for a little bit.”

In other years, U.S. Paralympics Cycling typically scheduled a team training camp in January. This year, that has been replaced by the Adelaide World Cup. After leaving the United States on Jan. 7, the athletes have just a few days of training before the competition begins with a team relay Saturday. The time trials will be held Jan. 15, followed by the road races Jan. 16 and 17.

“We’ll just be kind of hitting the ground running,” Lawless said. “The athletes will have the opportunity, I guess, to work off their holiday calories.”

The U.S. team has plenty of Paralympic muscle to carry the competition. In addition to Jones, the team includes four-time Paralympic medalist Shawn Morelli, two-time Paralympic medalist Jamie Whitmore, and two-time Paralympians Freddie De Los Santos and Travis Gaertner.

Some are competing in Adelaide less than two months after racing at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile.

“We have a great team of athletes who are attending,” Lawless said, “who I think are in good form for the winter. Some of those athletes are in good form because they competed in Santiago. Other athletes are in good form because they’ve just been training hard through the fall.”

“Sending a large team down there and sending a powerful team is very important,” Jones said.

Among the other Americans are Alicia Dana, Jenna Rollman and Kate Brim on the women’s side, and Dennis Connors, CJ Howard, Kyle Pitman, Barry Wilcox, Cody Wills, Brandon Lyons, Owen Daniels and Michael Davis on the men’s side.

De Los Santos, Connors and Brim won gold medals at the Parapan Am Games.

Lawless said the world cup season hasn’t started in January for 10 years. The next two world cups will be held in May in Europe.

“For us, it’s all kind of new in terms of just bringing a team of athletes that far and to race so early in the season,” Lawless said.

Jones and Whitmore are among those welcoming the change.

“I’ve been racing as a Para-cyclist for going on my 11th year and it’s always Europe, Canada or America,” Whitmore said. “I’m very excited to finally go and race in Australia.”

“I feel like we just continue this repeating,” Jones said of the Europe and North America usual world cup tour. “Rinse, wash, repeat, rinse, wash, repeat. And so it’s really nice and refreshing to go somewhere you don’t always get to go.”

Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic and Paralympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to USParaSnowboarding.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.

An Ambitious Trip Down Under Kicks Off The New Year For U.S. Road Cyclists

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