Elizabeth Mis Neag’s Paralympic Dream Began With An Eye-Opening Indoor Training Session

Elizabeth Mis Neag is a data analyst in her day job at J.M. Smucker, a food company based in Ohio.

She knows numbers.

So when she was riding her bike during a Zwift indoor session one day, she noticed a rider on the data list with “U.S. Para” next to their name.

“I was like, what is ‘US Para?’” Mis Neag said. “I had no idea what it was at the time.”

She did some digging online. Turns out that rider was Shawn Morelli, a four-time Paralympic medalist in cycling for Team USA. The digging soon opened up a journey that led Mis Neag to her first Para-cycling international event in 2022, followed by a world championships team berth this past summer and her first Parapan American Games in November in Santiago, Chile.

“It was absolutely amazing,” Mis Neag, 32, said of the Parapan Ams.

“We had the athletes village, the opening and closing ceremonies, which were really cool. The Chilean people were super amazing. They were extremely happy and excited to have all of us there racing. It was just really neat to feel the energy from the people. There were people out on the racecourse. We kind of felt like the Tour de France. You could just see people everywhere. They were blowing horns. It was pretty amazing to experience that.

“It’s kind of been a dream experience for me to go to experience something like that,” she added. “It was pretty spectacular.”

Mis Neag nearly won a medal at the Parapan Ams, finishing fourth behind five-time world champion and U.S. teammate Samantha Bosco in the women’s road race WC4-5. The dramatic finish provided the motivational fuel for chasing after a spot on the U.S. team that will compete in the Paralympic Games Paris 2024 next summer.

Born with a club left foot, Mis Neag had always dreamed of the Olympics while competing in able-bodied cycling.

“Going to the Olympic/Paralympic Games had kind of always been my one dream with cycling,” said Mis Neag, whose music as a saxophonist has been recorded and is on YouTube, Spotify, Apple and Amazon.

In just two seasons, Mis Neag has risen quickly in the WC5 class. She finished among the top 10 in both the road race and time trial at two world cups in 2023, the world championships in Glasgow, Scotland, and the Parapan Ams. Among those were a fourth-place finish in the time trial at the World Cup Final in Huntsville, Alabama, a fifth-place finish in the time trial at the Ostend, Belgium, World Cup, and a dramatic road race in Santiago in which Bosco, the reigning world champion, crashed early in the race and then came back and passed Mis Neag just before the finish line to win a bronze medal.

“I had no idea in the first couple laps where Sam was in the race,” Mis Neag said. “I thought she might have been in the front because I couldn’t see where she’s at. So it was kind of a surprise to see her come from behind maybe two or three laps in.”

Mis Neag lost out on a medal by one second while also setting a number of personal bests in the race.

“I’m happy with how it turned out,” she said. “Always want to get that podium spot. Honestly, I was really hoping this would have been my chance to get that third place. Next time, I guess.”

Clearly, Mis Neag’s path toward that memorable finish in Santiago is defined by the sweeping popularity of Para sports.

“I had no idea I qualified for Para cycling,” she said.

Mis Neag grew up in Ohio and enjoyed biking.

“Growing up as a kid, you kind of just wanted to be like everyone else, not really focusing on my disability,” she said. “I was just kind of, ‘Well, I can ride bikes OK.’ We had a huge community of cyclists here, and so I kind of rode off of my foot and my leg. It’s something that it is what it is. I can still ride bikes and kind of see how strong and if I can get to the Olympics one day.”

That day looking at the Zwift roster of riders changed everything.

One of her cycling friends is MK Wintz, who at the time was a pilot in a tandem team with 2023 world medalist Hannah Chadwick. Wintz helped Mis Neag get in touch with U.S. Paralympics Cycling officials.

“It was really cool when I found out about Para a couple of years ago,” said Mis Neag, whose husband, Chris Neag, is a local racer and met Elizabeth at a bike event. “It just made the whole dream of going to the Paralympics a possible reality.”

Mis Neag plans to race in a pair of world cup events in Europe in May, both of which are Paralympic qualifiers. From there, it’s the dream of Paris.

“I just can’t imagine,” she said. “Obviously, this (the Parapan Ams) was kind of a mini experience, mini Games, so I just can’t imagine how an actual Paralympic Games is, how much grander.”

Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic and Paralympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to USParaCycling.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.