Her lack of sight is not an issue when Whitsell, one of the top blind cyclists in the world, is on the back of a tandem bike with a pilot in front to steer and brake. But when she does her winter training, she likes to jump on a single bike and power down a country road, guided only by another cyclist riding by her side to warn her of any hazards ahead.

"Descending down hills, it's very scary," she said. "You have to trust the person you're riding beside. But it's a rush - the speed and being able to feel exactly what I'm doing on a bike."

Whitsell, 24, is afflicted with macular dystrophy, a condition that permits her to see only peripherally. She's also a world-class tandem bicyclist who, with sighted partner Katie Compton, has won a slew of medals at races around the globe in recent years, including two golds, a silver and a bronze at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens.

She's gearing up now for the spring and summer racing season, and looking ahead to the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. The Paralympics - for disabled athletes - are held in the same city as the Summer Games after the Olympics wrap up.

"A sense of freedom"

Whitsell, a Springfield native who lives in Eugene, was diagnosed with macular dystrophy when she was 9. It's a hereditary condition in which the retinal receptors in the macular region of the eye deteriorate.

The macular region is responsible for detailed vision and the ability to distinguish between different colors. Whitsell was left with just her peripheral vision.

But her lack of sight scarcely slowed her down. She ran in road races starting at age 3 with her father. When she was 15, a Braille teacher told her about a tandem bicycle clinic for blind people at Amazon Park.

"I thought, `This sounds dumb.' I thought I was too cool to go, but I decided to go anyway," she said.

She went for a ride with Mike Rosenberg of Eugene, a bicycle racer who had ridden tandem with Pam Fernandes, a former Paralympian cyclist.

"We rode pretty well together," Whitsell said. "He knew I was pretty fit. I guess he thought I was pretty strong."

Soon, Whitsell was hooked on tandem racing.

"For me, it was a sense of freedom," she said. "I could be athletic and go as fast as I wanted, without worrying about what I couldn't see."

She started training and racing with fellow Thurston High School student Matthew Veatch.

"We were both really young," Whitsell said. "Matt was 16 and I was 17. We went to a lot of national races and just did what we could."

After high school, Veatch joined the Army, and Whitsell connected with a Colorado rider named Spencer Yates. They went to the 2000 Sydney Paralympics, finishing fourth in the three-kilometer race.

Then the Paralympics eliminated the mixed tandem category, and Whitsell was left without a partner. She was training with Craig Griffin of Carmichael Training Systems, who had the contract to coach the U.S. Paralympic cycling team.

He started searching for a partner for Whitsell and in early 2002 found Compton, who was working in the CTS office.

Compton was a former U.S. junior national team racer but had quit competitive racing because of a mysterious chronic muscle condition that caused painful leg cramps if she trained too hard.

Compton, who had never ridden tandem before, and Whitsell clicked after a few training rides. They're both "mashers" in cycling lingo, meaning they like to ride in the bigger gears.

"We have similar riding styles," Whitsell said. "We both like heavier gears and ride at the same cadence. When I get on a bike with her, I feel right."

Compton said the biggest adjustment for her was going from a single bike to a tandem - akin to going from a Porsche to a semi.

"Everything slows down," she said. A tandem is slower to accelerate and decelerate and handles differently than a single.

As the pilot, Compton steers, brakes and changes gears, and communicates constantly with Whitsell, whose job as the "stoker" is to pedal hard.

A winning team

Soon after they began riding together, they started winning.

They won three medals and set two world records at their first competition, the 2002 Paralympic World Cycling Championships.

In 2003, the duo won two gold medals and two silvers at the International Blind Sports Association World Championships, and two golds and two silvers at the IPC European Cycling Championships.

Leading up to the 2004 Paralympics, Whitsell and Compton trained together at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and were very confident when they left for Athens.

"It was the most exciting and biggest sporting event I've ever competed in," Whitsell said.

They won a gold medal and set a world record in the three-kilometer pursuit, a race that takes place indoors in a velodrome, a banked oval, with each team starting on opposite sides and riding as hard as they can for 12 1/2 laps.

"It was the best feeling I could ever feel in racing," she said.

They also won gold in the road race and time trial, even though they started first and thus didn't know what kind of time they needed to win.

"We just rode as hard as we could - we were riding scared," she said.

They took a silver in the one-kilometer time trial in the velodrome and a bronze in the tandem sprint.

As she looks ahead to 2008 and the Beijing Paralympics, Whitsell said she'd like to keep riding with Compton, but she is concerned about her partner's chronic leg cramps.

They flared up last summer during the European Championships, where the duo finished with one silver and one gold medal.

"I don't want to lose a good thing, but it's very stressful with her leg condition," Whitsell said. "She's so strong. We have so much potential togeth- er."

And Compton said she, too, would like to keep racing with Whitsell through the 2008 Paralympics, then resume cyclocross racing, a combination of road and mountain biking. Compton said she's learned how to train around her leg cramps by making sure she gets enough rest.

"I think we'd do well" in Beijing, she said.

And Griffin, their coach, wants to see them stay together.

"I don't see anyone who has Katie's ability and experience and eligibility," he said.

"I'm hoping they will stay together and continue to dominate women's Paralympic tandem events like they have in the past."

PEOPLE

KARISSA WHITSELL
Occupation: Dispatcher, Whitsell Manufacturing; world-class tandem bike racer
Age: 24
On riding a tandem: "For me, it was a sense of freedom. ... I could be athletic and go as fast as I wanted without worrying about what I couldn't see."
On the red carpet: Nominated for an Espy Award last summer in the Best Athlete With a Disability Award, Whitsell got an expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles, where she glammed it up and hung with A-list sports celebrities. "It was crazy. You can pretend like you're somebody famous. ... I was just in awe of all these famous people. I pretended like I belonged there."