Photo by Donna Chiarelli (www.dhcstudio.com)

Greta Neimanas will race at the biggest competition of her young career at the 2006 IPC Cycling World Championships, Sept. 7-17.

Neimanas, who was born without her left arm below the elbow, was one of six physically disabled kids who earned a trip to Athens by submitting a winning essay as part of the Paralympic Academy program. One of the events the group saw was a track cycling competition, and U.S. Paralympic medalists Paul Martin (Boulder, Colo.), Katie Compton (Colorado Springs, Colo.), Karissa Whitsell (Springfield, Ore.) and Ron Williams (Birmingham, Ala.) were among the competitors.

“I’ve always had an interest in cycling, so I was like, ‘Hey! This is really cool! I can take this somewhere,’” Neimanas said.

Neimanas, at the age of 18, has taken herself far in a short amount of time. After getting the chance to meet Williams in Athens, she was inspired to get on a bike and begin training for competitive riding. Within a year of starting her competitive career, Neimanas was invited to a U.S. Paralympics National Team camp last November in Chula Vista, Calif., a feat she believes her athletic background allowed her to achieve.

“I’ve always been athletic,” Neimanas said. “The transition to cycling – it was hard, but it wasn’t like I was starting from nothing.”

It was at the November camp where Neimanas got to meet Cycling National Team head coach Craig Griffin (Colorado Springs, Colo.), and assistant coach Jim Lehman (Colorado Springs, Colo.), for the first time. Neimanas believes the coaches have made a significant impact on her performance.

“I feel like I’ve made a lot of improvements,” Neimanas said. “Craig and Jim have been great. They ride with you and tell you what adjustments you need to make. I had no idea that all that stuff made such a big difference.”

Griffin believes that, for all the advancements she’s made, there’s still a lot of room for growth.

“For me, the big change that I’ve noticed is that her pedaling efficiency has improved a lot,” Griffin said. “She’s very strong and has a lot of physical ability because of her soccer background, but she still needs to improve on her efficiency on the bicycle. There’s still a lot of room to get better.”

At the 2006 U.S. Paralympics Cycling National Championships a few weeks ago, she took another large stride, winning the bronze medal in the Women’s Road Time Trial event. That performance, combined with a couple solid runs on the track, earned her a spot on the squad that will represent the U.S. at the 2006 IPC Cycling World Championships, Sept. 7-17 in Aigle, Switzerland.

Looking ahead to the event, Neimanas is moving forward with very modest expectations.

“I’m not expecting to win anything because it’s just my second season,” Neimanas said. “I just want to get the experience right now. I just want to go and race.”

Before discovering competitive cycling, and before she ever became a part of the Paralympic Academy, Neimanas got started in adaptive sport at the RIC when she was 11. Her first camp was a ski trip with other young amputees, and the experience was a revelation for her.

“Meeting a lot of other people that were amputees and paraplegics was an eye opener,” Neimanas said. “There was a whole new world of sport for me.”

Coincidentally, it was a skier that proved to be a major influence on Neimanas in the world of disabled sport. Sandy Dukat (Vail, Colo.), a two-time Paralympian and three-time Paralympic medalist in alpine skiing, lived close to Neimanas before moving to Colorado to focus on skiing.

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” Neimanas said of her relationship with Dukat. “She’s been instrumental in getting me involved in sports, both adaptive and able-bodied.”

Getting involved has led Neimanas to experiences like wakeboarding competitively and becoming an award-winning scuba diver, among others. She will be a freshman this fall at Indiana University, where she will study for a degree in therapeutic recreation, a field where she may have the chance to provide such experiences for other disabled youth.

Before hitting the books in Bloomington, however, Neimanas has to prepare for the biggest event of her young cycling career. On Aug. 19, she’ll come to Colorado Springs for a two-week World Championships preparatory camp with her 20 teammates, a group that includes the four athletes that inspired her to start racing two years ago.

If that group goes to the 2008 Paralympic Games, there’s good reason to believe that Neimanas will be watching them again, only this time it will be because she’s waiting for her chance to race.

Her coach believes the opportunity is there, but her best chance to shine on the world’s stage may come down the road.

“One of the obstacles she’s had to deal with is being captain of her soccer team,” Griffin said. “Most of her spring was devoted to soccer. Now that she’s graduated, she’s going to be able to focus on cycling.

I think she’ll be able to go to Beijing, but I don’t think she’ll reach her full potential until London.”