1. Carol Cooke moved to Australia in 1994, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, and took up rowing in 2006, in which she narrowly missed out on being part of the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.
20 Facts About Carol Cooke
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Carol Cooke then switched to cycling, where she won a gold medal at the 2012 London Paralympics, two gold medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics and a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
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Carol Lynn Cooke was born on 6 August 1961 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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Carol Cooke worked with the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force for 14 years, following in the footsteps of her family, and spent some time working with the undercover drug squad.
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Carol Cooke met and married her husband, then moved to Australia in 1994.
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Carol Cooke is an ambassador for those dealing with the disease.
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Carol Cooke is a keen swimmer, and was hoping to make the Canadian team for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but she did not compete because Canada joined the boycott of the games.
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Carol Cooke then took up triathlon, coming fifth in her first competition, the 1985 World Police and Fire Games.
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Carol Cooke participated in several masters' tournaments in swimming, winning five medals in the Athletes With Disability Division at the 2005 World Masters Games.
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Carol Cooke attended a talent search day run by the Victorian Institute of Sport in December 2005, where it was recommended that she take up rowing; she began training for the sport in June 2006.
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Carol Cooke's coxed four team missed out on a position at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics by 0.8 seconds in the qualifying World Cup tournament in Munich.
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Carol Cooke came sixth at the 2009 World Rowing Championships.
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Carol Cooke then took up cycling, buying a tricycle "on a whim", and won both the trial and road racing events at the 2011 Australian Para-Cycling Road Championships.
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Carol Cooke won two gold medals in the Women's Time Trial T2 and Women's Road Race T2 at the 2017 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
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Carol Cooke was hospitalised with a punctured lung and was unable to depart Tokyo with the main Australian team.
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Carol Cooke won the silver medal in the Women's Time Trial T2 and did not finish the Women's Road Race T2 at the 2022 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Baie-Comeau.
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Carol Cooke was named the 2006 Victorian Masters' Athlete of the Year by the Victorian Institute of Sport.
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Carol Cooke was added to the lists of Who's Who of Australian Women and Victorians in 2008 and Who's Who of Australian Women in 2010.
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Carol Cooke received a Pride of Australia Medal in 2006 in the "role model" category, received the 2009 John Studdy Award from MS Australia, and was named a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International in 2009.
20.
In 2019 and 2022, Carol Cooke was awarded Cycling Australia's Para Female Road Cyclist of the Year.