Wed 02 May 12

London 2012 Paralympic Games: Para Phrasing with Damien Shaw, Tandem Pilot

“We really need top class cyclists like Damien, without guys like this we wouldn’t be winning medals”. Joe Geraghty meets Damien Shaw

From spikes to spokes, from athletics to cycling, Mullingar’s Damien Shaw is quietly making a name for himself.
27 years old Damien made the big switch to cycling just over two years ago. In this very short period he has trained with Tour de France green jersey legend Sean Kelly, won a full international cap and was nominated for Cycling Ireland’s Cyclist of the Year 2011.
To cap it all Damien Shaw plans to be at London2012 as a pilot tandem cyclist for the Paralympic Games. Recently Damien as pilot, and James Brown, his partially sighted stoker, won silver in Los Angeles in the 4km Tandem Cycling Pursuit at the World Track Para cycling Championships. “I really enjoy tandem cycling”, says Damien, “its team work, as opposed to the individual nature of athletics and cycling”.
Damien’s tandem cycling partner, James Brown from Portaferry, Co. Down, agrees. “’We work as a team”, says James, “we really need top class cyclists like Damien, without guys like this we wouldn’t be winning medals”.
Damien laughs it all off and perfectly logically says “wherever I go he goes, if I get it wrong though, he gets the blame!’ This tandem pair is a good humoured, but very competitive, duo Damien believes his move from athletics to cycling was a very smooth transition “I loved running with Mullingar Harriers, it’s a great sport and I gained a high level of aerobic fitness. I joined a few friends training for cycling a few years ago, I just got a good bike, and I improved quickly and haven’t looked back”.
He hit the roads flying and soon found himself on the podium in local, regional and ultimately national road races. He went on to win three day tours in Kenturk and Donegal. Damien’s international honours came at the prestigious West Midlands Classic in England.
It was trough Cycling Ireland, the national governing body for Para cycling, that Damien discovered tandem cycling. Damien attended tandem cycling trials for the London 2012 Irish Paralympic team and was automatically selected.
Damien travelled with the Irish team as pilot to the last year’s World Paralympic Track Championships in Italy, as well as the World Championship road series in Spain and Denmark. He also joined the Paralympic team training camps in Gran Canaria, Spain and Portugal. The silver medal in LA this year in the 4k pursuit has been the big achievement to date.
His training stint with Sean Kelly was in Allicante in Spain last January. Damien got a bird’s eye view of how the professionals do things but did not find himself totally at ease. ‘My focus now is on Cycling Ireland’s calendar of events and on tandem cycling towards the Paralympics”.
Damien Shaw reflects all that is good in Irish sport as he steadily steers towards the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
Irish Blind Sports is the national governing body for sports and leisure for blind and visually impaired people in Ireland.