When Keely Shaw first started contemplating cycling as a sport, she didn’t expect to find herself as one of the top competitors in the world. It started out as just using a road bike while spending a summer in London, Ontario. When she returned to Saskatoon, she touched base with Bruce Craven, with Craven Sports Services. He helped her look at what sports were available in para-sports, and she began her journey.

This past weekend, the Midale native found herself in Rio De Janeiro, competing in the Para-Cycling Track World Championships, her first ever international event.

“It was absolutely unreal,” Shaw said when talking with Discover Weyburn. “It took a long time to realize it wasn’t just a dream, it was actually happening.”

Shaw was set to compete in two events. She would be racing in the C4 500m race, and the C4 individual pursuit.

“Based on the times I put down in practice, I wasn’t going to be left in the dust, but never did I think I would be top five,” Shaw explained.

Midale's Keely Shaw racing at the world championships this past weekend. (photo courtesy Keely Shaw/facebook.com)In track cycling, the racers don’t get to look at the boards to see what their times are. Instead, the coaches call out the times to the racers as they pass by, usually just that last two numbers. For example, if the time was 26.7 seconds, the coach will yell out “6-7”.

During the individual pursuit race, as Shaw came by, her coach yelled out “9-9”.

“When I heard that nine for the first time, I thought he meant 29 seconds, I was sure I was slow,” she related. “Then I realized, I’m flying, that’s a lot faster than I usually do.”

In fact, her speed was good enough to finish the individual pursuit in fifth place with a time of 4:09.528, just over three seconds out of the chance to race for a medal. And flying she was, with her top speed clocked at 43.281 km/h.

In the C4 500m time trial, Shaw would put up strong numbers once again. She finished 10th, with a time of 47.249 seconds. In her first international competition, Shaw came away with two top 10 finishes, one of them a top five.

With her international debut done, Shaw is now splitting her time between working on her Masters’ thesis at the University of Saskatchewan and preparing for the start of the road race season at the end of April. She has even found a way to incorporate cycling into her Masters’ thesis, bringing together a few things she enjoys.

“Sports nutrition has always interested me,” she explained about her thesis, which is on ‘The effects of dark chocolate and metabolic and performance parameters of exercise in trained cyclists at altitude’.

“I’m just super intrigued by how what we put in our bodies can affect the physical performance, and being a high-performance athlete, we’re always looking for what can we do to be better, and how can I make that better, and I really like chocolate.”

Aside from the work at the University, Shaw is also preparing for her first road races of the season coming up in Montreal. She will be racing at Defi Sportif April 28th and 29th.