No crash can dash cyclist Tee's Paralympic debut

Just four days before his Paralympic debut, tandem cyclist Steve Tee and his pilot Ang Kee Meng crashed during a routine warm-up session in training after their front tyre burst.

While being carried off on a stretcher, Tee's first thought was: "I hope it's not over."

Luckily for him, he suffered only a bruise on his buttocks and abrasions on his hip. Ang had scratches on his elbows and knees, and an old wrist injury was aggravated.

But the fall did little to dent the duo's confidence.

They made their Paralympic debut in style, setting a personal best of 4min 40.453sec in the men's B 4,000m individual pursuit yesterday, finishing ninth out of 14 pairs overall.

In tandem para-cycling, a visually-impaired athlete, called the stoker, is paired with a sighted counterpart, or the pilot.

In the third heat in Tokyo, Tee and Ang beat Hungary's Robert Ocelka and pilot Gergely Nagy who clocked 4:42.401.

Tristan Bangma and pilot Patrick Bos of the Netherlands, who won the heats in a world record 3:59.470, took gold ahead of British defending champion Stephen Bate and pilot Adam Duggleby. Poland's Marcin Polak and Michal Ladosz beat France's Alexandre Lloveras and Corentin Ermenault in the bronze-medal race.

Tee, 40, said: "After the crash, we tried not to focus on negative thoughts and focused on the positive things we could do.

"Everything comes back to square one as our main aim is to compete in the Paralympics no matter what happens, whether it's Covid-19 or injuries or a crash that hits us. We just want to carry on."

Tee and Ang, who have been cycling together since 2017, were also pleased to achieve their goal of improving their previous fastest time of 4:47.414, set at the Para Asian Track Championships 2019 in Jakarta, and finishing in the top 10.

The pair had a final training camp in Wales before heading to Tokyo. Tee was there for nine weeks while Ang had been in Cambridge since early March before meeting Tee in Newport.

Ang, 34, said that before going to Wales, he and Tee did not expect to lower their personal best by seven seconds. He added: "People might say that seven seconds is a short time but to athletes, to shave off 0.5 or 1 second can take them years of training.

"For us to jump that far, I think it's proof that the journey has been great and coming to Tokyo to fulfil this part of the journey is a really good feeling.

"It was also great to see the Singapore cycling community coming together to cheer us on. We're building towards a better engine for both of us.

"For the other two events, we know we have the engine, so although they're not our pet events, we will do the best we can."

Tee and Ang will compete in the men's B 1,000m time trial on Saturday and men's B time trial (road cycling) on Tuesday.