14 Apr 2011

Paralympic cyclists gear up for London Olympics

Channel 4 News reporter Katie Razzall gains exclusive access to the hi-tech training ground of Britain’s Paralympic handcycling team as they race towards gold in London 2012.

Channel 4 News has been given exclusive access to a tiny part of the testing that’s going on to try to give Britain’s Paralympians the edge in 2012.

Most of it is top secret. This is where science meets sports, and medals result – or at least that’s the aim.

The special three-wheeled handcycles allow wheelchair bound athletes to cycle at high speed using the power of their upper body and arms.

At BAE systems in Preston – a place where they’re more used to building Typhoon jets than dealing with athletes – the engineers have turned their attention to the handcyclists from Team GB who could win gold in 2012.

Enter the wind tunnel. The BAE tunnel looks old – it was built in 1948 – but it does the job just as well now as it did then.

Paralympic cyclists gear up for London Olympics

It’s primarily used to test military and civil aircraft, but today it was testing out two potential Paralympians.

Rachel Morris won gold in handcycling at the Beijing Olympics and wants to repeat that. Brian Alldis is hoping for his first gold in London next year.

A handbike is a three-wheeler in which the sportsmen and women lie down and propel it with their hands. In the wind tunnel they’ve been looking at how to decrease the wind friction when they’re racing.

If they can do that, by moving their positioning just a fraction, they can go faster. As they put it, it could make the difference between silver and gold.