It was the keen eye of ACT Academy of Sport paracycling coach Sian Mulholland that led Susan Powell on her path to Australia's first gold medal of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.
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''Sian had seen Sue out at the criterium at Stromlo and saw her hobbling around and thought 'oh ok, a woman who rides a bike with a disability' and went up to her and had a bit of a chat,'' her coach Glenn Doney said.
Powell had taken up cycling as part of her rehabilitation from a spinal injury sustained playing hockey which left her with nerve damage weakening her right leg.
The Stromlo encounter led to an invitation to a weekly track session Mulholland held, and she recommended to ACTAS head cycling coach Doney they sign her up.
''I said to Sian to take her out to the velodrome at Narrabundah and put her on the track, do just one and half laps of the velodrome and see what time she does,'' Doney recalls.
''On no disc wheels, or any flash equipment … she nearly broke the existing world record.''
In the early hours of yesterday morning, after training under Mulholland for three years and Doney this year, Powell went a step further in the individual pursuit to break the world record by two seconds - with a four-second personal best - to win Paralympic Gold.
She hadn't set out to win gold in the event, the aim was just to beat her previous best time of four minutes, seven seconds, a previous world record which had since been lowered.
''It was pretty hard going into, you had Alex Green, current world champion, the Canadian, the current world record holder … and you never know what the Chinese are doing, they always come out of the woodwork,'' Doney said. ''We were just hoping for a PB and if the PB was good enough to yield a medal, then great.''
Riding against competitors 20 years her junior, 45-year-old Powell showed the maturity that Mulholland says has helped in her preparation
''She's just a natural competitor,'' Mulholland said. ''Very thorough in her preparation, and in terms of training she's always looking for how to get that extra edge, and a healthy level of questioning of everything … it keeps everybody on their game.''
Powell's next race is the 500m time trial tonight, where her C4 category will combine with the C5 category, which includes athletes with less severe disability, with the times of the C4 athletes factored accordingly.
Doney will be up late again to watch the race streamed on the internet.
''I think we're all a bit sleep deprived after the Tour de France, then the Olympics as well, so the body clock has been completely reset anyway,'' he said.
