U.S. Army veteran Shawn Morelli earned Team USA’s first medal of the Tokyo Paralympic Games on Wednesday with her silver-medal performance in the women’s 3,000-meter individual pursuit track cycling event in the C4 classification. (According to the International Paralympic Committee, cycling classifications of C1–C5 includes athletes who compete on standard bicycles—the lower the number in the classification, the more severe the limitation in upper or lower limbs.)
The reigning Rio Paralympic champion qualified for the gold-medal matchup against Australia’s Emily Petricola, who had broken Morelli’s Paralympic record in the qualifying round with a world record of 3 minutes, 38.061 seconds. Petricola lapped Morelli in the final to claim gold, and Canada’s Keely Shaw earned bronze.
“I think everybody [who falls short of defending a title] is a little bit [disappointed], but a medal at the Games is a medal at the Games,” Morelli said after the race. “It still means you’re one of the best in the world. Petricola threw down an awesome ride, and she brought it. Now I know what I’ve got to do to get back to her.”
The 45-year-old from Meadville, Pennsylvania, is competing in her second Paralympics. At the 2016 Rio Games, she won gold in both this event and the road time trial, which is still on her itinerary later in Tokyo. Since starting competitive cycling in 2010, she has won a total of 16 medals, including 12 golds, at world championship events.
Morelli was commissioned into the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant in 1996 and served as an engineer officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2007 she was injured in Afghanistan when a roadside bomb detonated near her. She was left with no vision in her left eye and severe damage to her spine and neck.
In an interview with the International Paralympic Committee in 2020, Morelli said that she believes her career in the U.S. Army helped her cycling career in a bunch of ways.
“First off, it helps me keep things in perspective,” she said. “I mean, when you have seen, done, and been through some of the things I have, it is easy to just think to myself, I am just racing a bike.” Plus, she told the committee, it also helped prepare her to keep her cool in high-pressure situations.
While Morelli earned the first medal for Team USA in Tokyo, it undoubtedly won’t be the last: In Rio, Team USA clinched 115 medals, 40 of which were gold. Morelli will be looking to add to Team USA’s total haul—and her Tokyo count—by defending her road time trial tile from Rio on August 31.
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