Paul Ryan

By Cristina del Sesto.

Paul Ryan
Age: 40
Ireland
Argo Challenge Sail Trimmer

One month before Paul Rhino Ryan's 17^th birthday on July 22, 1987 he found himself on an asphalt road in County Cork beneath a four axle truck bleeding to death in the middle of the afternoon. His main arteries severed, he also broke nearly every bone in his body and received 78 units of blood. After two weeks of unconsciousness he awoke to the sound of his doctor telling him his right leg would have to be amputated.

I had to remind myself, said Ryan, that the motorcycle accident had changed my life and not taken it. Raised on a horse farm with five siblings, Ryan's world revolved around athletics and the ability to move fast. Flat ponies, trotters, point to point, and hunters filled the barn and many of them were winners too like Mathew Spencer and a stallion called John Joe. Ryan was a captain of the Ballygarvan Gaa, the local hurling and football club and had made the inter-county trials the week before the accident.

At the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun-Laoire Dublin, Ryan spent the better part of two years in rehab playing five aside football on crutches and wheelchair basketball. He set up a punch bag in the family garage, got back angling and coaching other kids in hurling. "But I missed the edge to my sports", Ryan said. A chance meeting in April of 1999 with Paralympic sailor Paul McCarthy at the neighborhood pub, the Five Mile Inn, led to an invitation on his boat Bluff in Kinsale Harbor on the Celtic Sea. McCarthy was in a wheelchair after his motorcycle accident. The two had an uncanny amount of things in common the least of which was the fact that they lived eight miles apart.

"I soon found that Paul was as mad about sport and competition as I was and we started training and racing in anything we could enter", Ryan said. "It was a new lease on life for me".

They went to their first IFDS Worlds in Medemblik, Holland 2002 and they finished eighth. "We were hoping to get into the top 20", he recalled. "I'd caught the bug and trained for the next six years with some of the best coaches and sailors in the world".

After narrowly missing the Athens Paralympics in 2004 they set their sites on China 2008. They competed in Olympic Class Regattas around the world and consistently placing in the top seven. "Participating in the Paralympics in China in 2008 was one of the highlights of my life", he said. "The racing didn't go great for us and we finished in 9^th overall which was a disappointment but if it was easy I guess everyone would be doing it".

Upon his return from China Ryan turned his attention to giving something back to the sport. He got involved with The Irish Disabled Sailing Association and is currently its chairman. The IDSA Runs is Ireland's first sailing program for children with disabilities. The organization has more than 400 members countrywide (www.sailforce.ie).

"The reality of physical limitations has required adapting. I move more with my hands rather than leg and tend to scamper around the boat rather than run on fore deck especially", he said. "I'm not as physically fast as I was and as a consequence I tend to think things out more but I still have my moments of charging in". He doesn't alter the boats he sails in dramatically. "Paraplegics usually need handles to stabilize themselves or guys like me keep tying lines as not to get them tangled on their prosthetic", said Ryan. "It might be as small as that but all sailors able or disabled like to feel at home on every boat they sail and usually create their own little space. I always race with my prosthetic. It's pretty low tech as best suits salt water and the general abuse that I give it".

Ryan still is involved with hurling but trains others rather than himself. The only thing he really misses from his youth prior to the accident is running. So, he trained for the Dublin City Marathon in 2010 and finished third overall.

"My success is due to the fact that I push myself to be the best that I can be at all times in every endeavor and thats the way it has been both before and since my accident", said Ryan. "Its like that old saying: the more I train the luckier I get".

The Argo Challenge represents taking the sport to the absolute highest level for Ryan and he sees no reason why there should be any obstacles. "I have spent all my life chasing one sporting dream or another. "I certainly didn't choose to be a sailor, I literally fell into it by accident but I've loved every moment", he said. I'm more tenacious and dogged now and I still hate to lose".