Paralympic Gold Medalist Talks Engineering and Competition

After a year’s delay due to the pandemic, the Paralympic Cycling season will hit the starting line in Huntsville next month.

More than 100 Paralympians will test their mettle and strive for medals as they push to qualify for the U.S. team in the 2021 Tokyo Paralympic Games. The free event in Cummings Research Park is April 17-18.

One of the competitors is longtime Birmingham resident, Jennifer Schuble, a five-time Paralympic medalist who will be competing in four events: the time trials, road race, pursuit and team sprint.

A three-time Paralympian, Schuble has won a Gold, three Silver, and one Bronze Medal in the 2008, 2112, and 2016 Paralympic Games. 

She shared her journey as a military veteran, an elite athlete, and as an industrial engineer on a Zoom call with the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce. 

“I am especially excited about the season starting in Huntsville because it will be my very first race with Team U.S.A. that has been in my home state,” said Schuble. “I get to show everybody how Alabama is a great place to ride and train year-round, with great weather and great roads like those in Research Park that are not too busy to ride on.”

Schuble was a varsity athlete in three sports when she sustained a traumatic brain injury in a hand-to-hand combat class at West Point. Later, she sustained an additional brain injury in a car wreck and, in 2004, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. 

She came to the Paralympics from the Lakeshore Foundation, a Paralympic training site in Birmingham where she got into cycling.

How has she found the strength and endurance to compete after all she has been through?

“The competitive edge is sort of part of your DNA and, at the Military Academy, it is embedded in you,” she said. “Everything gets thrown at you and they give you more than you can handle, so you have to figure out how to balance and overcome challenges.

“All of my training is about how to balance time management and push your body, because at the Academy, you really are pushed to your limit a lot and you develop an understanding of how to play with your mind to push even further.”

She said becoming an engineer gives her a distraction from her always being focused on cycling.

“Engineering gives me stability and stable income, but it also helps in determining what years I ride, provides specs on building my bikes, how I source the parts and decide, will this crank work better for me or will that one be more affordable and just as good,” Schuble said.

Her teammate is a mechanical engineer and her teammate’s father is an aerospace engineer and the trio have been creative in modifying their bikes within team parameters.

“She created a stump cup for her amputated knee,” Schuble said of her teammate. “She has the most aerodynamic bike on the circuit.”

There are several classes within the Paralympics and Schuble will compete in the C5 class, which is for athletes with the most minimal impairment and functionality.

She said there is another reason she is excited about kicking off the season at home – she can get in the car and drive to Huntsville.

‘People don’t realize what an ordeal it is to travel by air as a cyclist,” Schuble said. “You have to disassemble and reassemble your bikes and put them into multiple boxes at the airport. Then you have to worry about damages and the bicycles arriving on time. And you cannot just rent a small compact car at airport because you have so much equipment and baggage. 

“I often joke that I should have become a swimmer because all I would need is my swimsuit and a pair of goggles!”

It will also be her first time seeing her teammates in over a year.

“My last competition was in April 2020, right before COVID stopped everything,” she said. “Truthfully though, it gave me more non-competition time for my training regimen. 

“As a cyclist, I considered myself lucky. When the gyms closed and I couldn’t go to Lakeshore’s facility, I could still ride outside. I also acquired some equipment to help keep up my strength and conditioning. I enjoy riding my bike, getting out in nature with the fresh air.”

She said endurance is the key.

“I do about 60 to 70 miles on a long ride,” Schuble said. “I did the Cheaha Challenge one year and I was ready to collapse after that 100 miles, so I find my 60-mile regiment is about right.”

For Schuble, cycling doesn’t just fulfill her competitive nature, it’s a form of therapy.

“It’s a goal to continue to work on balance and coordination and to keep my health in check,” she said. “I have a fine balance with MS that if I stop doing things, I start losing things.

“It is what helps keep me balanced.”