Para-triathlete Tony Scoleri finishes fourth in category at world championships in Canada

PARA-TRIATHLETE Tony Scoleri could only dream of competing at international events after he was involved in a bike accident in 2007 — now he is ranked fourth in the world.

15.9.2014. Paratriathlete Tony Scoleri, of Grange, will be raising money for the Flinders Med Centre premature babies department, sponsored by Tony Modra and family, by running in the city-bay. pic tait schmaal.

TRIATHLETE Tony Scoleri could only dream of competing at a world titles after he was involved in a bike accident in 2007.

Scoleri, a state age-group champion in the sport, was cycling when a car door struck him in the neck, slicing into two nerves.

It left the Grange resident with a lack of movement and power in his right arm before being surgically repaired, leading to a lengthy recovery process.

Less than two years after returning to racing, Scoleri finished fourth in the pt4 category in this month’s open para-triathlon at the triathlon world championships in Edmonton, Canada.

“It was a lifetime dream,” Scoleri, 34, says.

“It was only last year that I decided to give the sport another go and it went really well.

“(Doctors) didn’t expect such a recovery – they said ‘you will never be able to compete again’.

“It’s turning my life upside-down because I was sitting at home being in pain not doing much.”

After the accident, it took nine months for the swelling on Scoleri’s arm to subside.

He lost sensation in his arm and doctors considered amputating it.

These days he often wears a scarf to cover a 30cm scar stretching from near his ear, along his neck to his shoulder.

“I had a lack of sensation in the arm. It’s attached to my body but it doesn’t feel like it’s there.

“It was only through really hardcore physiotherapy and so on that I started stimulating the arm and some of it came back.

“I did that for five or six years every day, several times a day.”

Scoleri will compete at the national duathlon championships in Adelaide next month.

His long-term goal is the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics.