CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The 2024 Paralympic Games begin in Paris on August 28. Head coach of the U. of I. wheelchair track and road racing team Adam Bleakney will be there — coaching for Team USA. All nine of the wheelchair racing athletes representing the U.S. have a connection to Illinois —most of them have trained at the university’s facility in the Rehabilitation Education Center, one of eight U.S. Olympic and Paralympic training sites.
Bleakney won a silver medal in the 800-meter race in the 2004 Games in Greece and competed in the 2000 Paralympics in Australia and the 2008 Games in China.
In his time as the head coach, his athletes have won 55 medals across four Paralympic Games while setting 14 world records on the track, and have won the Boston Marathon, London Marathon, Chicago Marathon and New York City Marathon. In recognition of such performances, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee named him Paralympic Coach of the Year on three occasions.
Bleakney spoke with staff writer Maeve Reilly about his background, the competition and what he’s looking forward to at the Games.
Tell us about your experience as an athlete.
Athletics has always been a big part of my life. My dad was a Division I collegiate wrestler, so he brought me up in the wrestling culture and I wrestled my freshman year in college.
I had a spinal cord injury when I was 19, between my freshman and sophomore year of college. I was looking for something to redirect my energy and I was drawn to wheelchair marathoning. My spinal cord injury was in 1995 and I raced in the Chicago Marathon in October 1996, just a little over a year after my injury.
I was fortunate that there was a man who lived about 30 miles north of my hometown of Mason City, Iowa, who showed me the ropes and got me involved. He told me about a wheelchair sports camp in Rochester, Minnesota, and I visited the camp and met a couple of wheelchair racers who were mentors, including Jacob Heilveil.
The marathon was really a natural fit for me. The big draw for me was the time training outside. I think anytime you have a redirection in your life that you don’t expect and that’s dramatic in nature, you always try to find those anchor points where you can bridge the gap between where you’re at and where you were, and for me it was training and being outdoors.
I had success in some of the middle-distance events on track. The best marathoners in the world in our sport are also generally the best at middle distance because you need the same skill set, the same fitness.
How did you become the coach at Illinois?
My dad read an article about the program here at the University of Illinois. I had no clue it existed.
I transferred here in 1997 to finish my undergraduate degree and then I stayed and got my graduate degree. I had a job in Atlanta for two years and I came back in 2005 and took over the head coaching job that year.
I didn’t really have any interest in being a coach, but the opportunity presented itself for wheelchair track and marathon racing. It is a passion of mine, and I had such a good, impactful experience here at Illinois, I felt some sense of responsibility to return and to provide those experiences to other student athletes.
With the U.S. national Paralympic team, there isn’t one designated national team coach. I’ll be the wheelchair track coach in Paris.
All nine of the wheelchair racing athletes who will be competing in Paris have a connection to your program. How do you account for this success?
Seven of the nine are either current student athletes or recently graduated, a few of whom have taken on assistant coaching roles. Aaron Pike is my assistant coach. Brian Siemann, who works as an access specialist at the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services, provides the athletes with academic guidance. Susannah Scaroni, who graduated with a degree in nutritional sciences, helps the athletes with nutrition. Hannah Dederick and Jenna Fesemyer are current student athletes, Eva Houston is recently graduated and applying to graduate school, and Daniel Romanchuk lives in the community.
The other two also have Illinois ties: Tatyana McFadden is an alumna now living in Maryland and Lauren Fields is an incoming freshman for this fall.
My coaching philosophy is to some degree very hands-off. My primary goal is and always has been to create an environment that enables each athlete to grow into their potential. I want to ensure that the fixtures for success are in place, and then allow the athletes to take ownership of their development and success. I’ll provide them with cues, guidance and input, but I do leave it up to them to be internally driven. I find the highest performing athletes — the ones that continually have success each year — thrive in this type of environment.
I think some of the pillars of success for the program are the structure, the support staff and the tradition. The athletes who have been here in my time provide momentum and energy for the next generation, and it really is a virtuous cycle where the grad students mentor the undergrads and really demonstrate to them the process for becoming a Paralympic medalist or world record holder.
A young freshman training with Paralympians and world champions every day receives an understanding of best practices and models. It’s a really good environment to breed success. It’s very, very competitive, very driven, and they work off of each other every day.
That all links back into the tradition and legacy that positioned us on top of the world beginning with Tim Nugent’s vision and his relentless pursuit of realizing that vision and continuing it with coaches like Marty Morse and Brad Hedrick. We have been a leader in the Paralympic movement since its inception — that is a legacy and tradition that no other campus can claim.
Who are the biggest competitors and what are you most excited about?
China tends to win the overall medal count from the Paralympic Games and Switzerland also has a really good program. The United Kingdom is also in the mix and so is Brazil. Thailand, interestingly, has a really good wheelchair track program, so there’s enough competition.
There’s definite excitement and energy associated with the competition. For me it’s always the intensity of the competition during those 10 days, and the level of the competition is so energizing but also draining. I’ve either competed in or coached at every Games since Sydney in 2000.
We have a couple of athletes who have won medals and world championships that I think are positioned well to medal, and maybe we can get a couple more athletes on the podium.