Four-time Para cycling world champion Mel Pemble collected her second straight silver medal in the women’s C3 kilometre time trial on Friday at this year’s track competition in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.
The Victoria native led the four-lap 1,000-metre race through 250m and was second by the halfway mark before dropping to third with a lap remaining. She battled back to reach the finish in a personal best one-minute 16.161 seconds.
Aniek Van den Aarssen of the Netherlands was victorious in 1:15.991 while teammate Anne Martha Blok grabbed bronze (1:16.162).
Last year in Rio, Pemble clocked 1:16.798, second only to Australia’s Emily Petricola in Rio. She won C3 (conventional bike) sprint gold while adding silver in the C3 elimination race and bronze in the C3 scratch race.
Born with cerebral palsy affecting her right side, Pemble captured time trial silver two years ago when the race was contested over 500 metres.
The 26-year-old former Para alpine skier has earned 11 medals at the last four track worlds, including four gold.
Time trial was the lone track event for Pemble at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, and it ended in heartbreaking fashion.
She finished 0.3 seconds from a medal in her Paralympics debut. Competing in the C1-3 500m competition, her time failed to hold up against the adjusted time of the more impaired German rider and Pemble placed fourth.
However, she set a world and Paralympic record in the C3 category with a time of 38.512 seconds during the time trial qualifying stage.
Mel Pemble turns page on Paralympic heartbreak with historic world title
Pemble wins 500m time trial silver at 2024 Para track cycling worlds
Things are shaping up to be different at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, thanks to an overhauled training regimen focused more on endurance.
“When L.A. comes around, it is a possibility that I can be targeting four out of the five events instead of just one, which is a daunting feeling, but also very exciting,” Pemble told CBC Sports last November. “It feels definitely different to be able to go after more … it feels like it’s opened a lot more doors.”
Paralympic bronze medallist Alexandre Hayward, from Quispamsis, N.B., is also competing in Apeldoorn along with teammates Lowell Taylor of Lethbridge, Alta., and his pilot Jason Abbott of Calgary in the men’s blind category. Vancouver’s Jessica Law is racing in women’s C5.
Competition at the Omnisport arena runs through Sunday.
