Louis has a sports centre named after him,
At his local Cambridge Regional college;
He’s a C2 para-cyclist, has Cerebral Palsy,
Plus hydrocephalus, was fired by 2012.
So after these very successful Paras 2012,
Louis was tested by British cycling coaches,
Who found talent, skill and hidden strength,
Such that he became part of the GB team.
He made the 2012 Newport Internationals,
Where he won for the individuals, bronze,
Collected a team silver and he progressed,
Onto the Apeldoorn Worlds in Holland.
There he placed fifth in the team sprint,
Came seventh in the long 1km time trial,
And in the individual pursuit came tenth,
To make the Montichiari World Champs.
One gold for the team sprint, one bronze,
For the C1-C5 C2 time trial, and so in Rio
He excelled, taking the team sprint gold,
And the bronze in the C2 individual pursuit.
Crystal was born with a similar condition,
To Sarah Storey who’s the Dame of Para,
And was so impressed by Beijing in 2008,
That she responded to the ad for athletes.
She was already doing a sports degree,
Exeter University, Exercise and Sports,
And so after she was accepted for trials,
She joined, 2011, the para-cycling team.
At Roskilde in Denmark, 2011, her debut,
She took bronze medal in the road race,
And came ninth place in the C5 time trial,
To make her place on para-cycling’s plane.
She participated in the 2012 Paralympics,
And in Apeldoorn, the central Netherlands,
In the 500m time trial C5 she won the silver,
In the scratch race C4-5 she won bronze.
So Rio came at the right time for Crystal,
When she was also taking a sports Masters,
At Loughborough University, ‘cos she won,
A silver, individual, and a bronze, road race.
Whilst Jon-Allan was out Iraq to warfare ban,
In 2007 he sustained an injury, rocket attack,
So that doctors had to amputate his left arm,
But after rehab he continued the sport’s crack.
He’d been a weapons technician in the RAF,
At Basra airbase, and before that Afghanistan,
But he was now on a programme so to quaff,
Any idea that he wasn’t good at cycling’s pun.
He took the limelight at the London games,
When he won three silvers for para-cycling:
One for the C5 Individual Pursuit, sole aims,
One for the mixed team sprint very cunning,
And another silver for the C4-5 1km Time Trial!
Then 2016, and he won gold for the mixed team,
And also a silver medal for the C5 kilo Time Trial
In Montichiari, and so made the Rio GB Team.
Sarah Storey was the first disabled athlete,
In the Commonwealth Games to compete,
As an English competitor, and she’s thrice,
Able-bodied national track champion of ice.
She was born without a left hand, entangled,
But she was firstly a swimmer, she jangled,
Then she became a cyclist on road and track,
And is still pedalling strong, not to look back.
She swam in Barcelona in 1992 and won,
Two golds, three silvers and a bronzed one,
Then in 2008, again at the Paras her fifth,
She won the individual pursuit with much pith.
Sarah Storey won Britain’s first gold in the C5,
In the women’s individual pursuit she’d thrive,
And in the C4-5 5000m, C4-5, and on road,
She won each one with a gold that was owed.
In 2014 she founded a sports cycling team,
Which supports a breast cancer charity keen,
And she became a MBE in 1998, OBE in 2009,
Then she was made a dame in 2013, long line.
She married Barney her coach and duel pilot,
For the tandem duel ride, which could be a riot,
And was on the 2012 Celebrity Mastermind IQ,
With Sex & The City, and also has a girl to coo.
He sits across from me over a board
With checkered squares. He is white; I am black.
I need a win, him a draw. Can’t afford
To play prophylactically. Attack
Is my only chance to win this tourney.
Which leaves me with only one opening:
The Sicilian*. I only hope that he
Will play a hackneyed first move like a king
Pawn center thrust. Queen pawn creates problems
And he doesn’t need problems at this time.
I feel both moves favor me. It depends.
Playing queen pawn I think would undermine
His chances for a draw but then again
The king pawn move allows the Sicilian.
* 1. e4....c5