Rik Waddon

Rik Waddon

Personal information
Full name	Rik Waddon
Born	(1977-02-27) 27 February 1977 Chester, England, United Kingdom
Height	172 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	58 kg (128 lb)
Team information
Current team	paraT Paracycling Team
Discipline	Track & Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Road
Amateur team(s)
1993 to 1999	Chester road club
Professional team(s)
2000 to 2016	ParaT Paracycling Team
Major wins
Team sprint UCI track world championship 2007
Medal record Representing  Great Britain Men's cycling Paralympic Games 2008 Beijing 1km Time Trial (CP 3) 2012 London Mixed Team Sprint (C1-5)

Rik Waddon (born 27 February 1977) is a ex Professional Paralympic British road and track racing cyclist and Paralympian.^[1] Waddon is (single) separated from British Paralympic swimmer, Natalie Jones.

Early life

At the age of just 5 Rik was involved in a road traffic accident resulting in him being knocked off his bike, after spending most of his childhood trying to grow up with a disability Rik began cycling in 1991 at the age of 14. As he quickly realized that it was the one thing in life that gave him freedom from the everyday grind of coping with his condition. Knowing nothing about disability cycling at that time, Rik would compete in able-bodied races where he gained some minor successes.

Career

In 2000 Rik began to compete in disability cycling and was selected to train with the Great Britain team at the end of that year. In 2000 he was invited onto the World-class performance program, which would grant him lottery funding to further develop his career. Rik is a double medallist from the Beijing 2008 paralympic games and the London 2012 paralympic games in the C3 category from the track disciplines, Rik rode the kilo in Beijing and the team sprint in London, Rik has also been a UCI world Paracycling champion in the team sprint in 2007 and a UCI Paracycling world cup time trial winner in 2010. Rik has been riding at international level for 15 years competing on the track and the road over the years.

Riks number one passion and hunger is for the road where in 2010 he got a real good taste of success by winning a UCI world cup time trial in Segovia Spain which even now Rik still sees as the best achievement of his career so far, you might find that hard to believe considering Rik has two paralympic medals but he has so much passion for the road that a road medal means more to him!

At the end of 2012 Rik decided to take a year out from competing for the GB team and moved his focus to his trade team ParaT Paracycling team as he wanted to rebuild himself as a endurance rider in the road time trial discipline which is a big shift to just riding 500m as was the case at London 2012 but Rik enjoys a big challenge and is really digging deep into something special. Just six months after starting this path way in 2013 Rik started to show results winning the national Paracycling road time trial and finishing in a strong position at a UCI road world cup in Spain.

Rik wrapped up the Rudy project time trial series in 2014 and 2015, Rik also gained selection to represent Great Britain at a UCI world cup event in 2014 in Spain and went on to finish 1st in the national road circuit championship winning him his second national stripes jersey showing domination by holding two national titles on the road in 2014.

2015 was a rerun of 2014 by defending his national titles on the road with also a hand full of top 10 international races and taking him forward into 2016. After missing out on selection for the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games Rik finally hit the podium in July in Spain at the third round of a UCI world cup and winning bronze in the road time trial event.

References