Episode #18

Hello, my name is Daniel Abraham Gebru, reigning Paralympic cycling champion for the Netherlands, but my roots are in Eritrea. Currently, I am mentoring young refugees in the Netherlands and trying to inspire them by showing them how sports can help them integrate in the Netherlands. In addition, I am working hard towards my goal of successfully defending my Olympic title. I am happy to share my experiences, highs and lows with you on the road to Tokyo 2020!

Well… what can I say? Remember when I updated you last week moments after the 4 kilometers individual pursuit on the track? A lot has happened since then. Let’s start with the days after this medal event when I went training outside again. On Saturday, Sunday and Monday, you were able to find me on the Fuji Speedway racing circuit. Here I was do some very high-quality training sessions on the time trial’s course. After more than 120 kilometers on the circuit, I truly knew every little detail and also the perfect racing line. Also, I came back with some KOMs after these training sessions. Fair to say that I was ready and feeling confident.

Tuesday the 7th of September meant Individual Time Trial raceday! With both my outfit and motivation in the bag, we went by bus to the racing circuit again where I would roll of the start ramp at 14:00 local time, being the penultimate rider to start. I knew that I had everything I could in preparation for this day, so when I clocked ‘only’ the fourth best time at the first intermediate split, I did not panic, even tough I had a 24 seconds deficit. I sticked to the plan and rode a very strong second part of the race, climbing up to third place only three seconds slower than the race leader. In the final part, however, I powered away from the competition and recorded the fastest time, beating the first competitor by no less than 33 seconds. GOLD! I AM ONCE AGAIN OLYMPIC CHAMPION!

I still can’t really believe how perfect the time trial went. I am so grateful for everyone who supported me and is still doing – my phone has not stopped buzzing ever since! Of course we celebrated the win afterwards, but to be honest I was already looking forward to the Road Race as well. Being the reigning Olympic Champion from Rio 2016, there was a bit of pressure, but I was able to cope with it quite well. Again I knew that I had a perfect preparation in the last months, so there was nothing to stress about. We started and finished again on the Fuji Speedway, so immediately the memories from a few days before came back. What a nice feeling to start the road race. It turned out that I was amongst the three strongest riders in the race, so a medal was already secured.

"IN THE FINAL PART I POWERED AWAY FROM THE COMPETITION AND RECORDED THE FASTEST TIME"

Fair to say that two other guys were today a little bit better. Nothing to worry about, in fact, let’s celebrate yet another medal: BRONZE! If you would have said beforehand that I was going back home to The Netherlands with two medals – gold and bronze – I was totally fine with this. The past few months have been quite the ride, an amazing adventure made possible thanks to the team of professionals around me. Also FUTURUM deserves thig big thank you. Their high-quality clothing have made live so much easier for me. I owe you guys forever! On to the next goals…

See you soon, Daniel

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