Story by Emma Cooke
Photos by Cameron Thomas
Every week, Michelle Ballasiotes rides her bike on the trails at Lake Crabtree. Her bike doesn’t look like everyone else’s.
Her recumbent trike features a reclined seat, handles on either side of the hips that brake and steer, and a foot blocker that prevents her right foot from turning in or from falling off the pedal.
“Originally, I had just one brake on the left side because my right side is affected by cerebral palsy,” she says. “I have a mountain bike tire on the rear and it’s a pretty big wheel. I got a bike that goes fast because I like to go fast.”
Ballasiotes had a pediatric stroke before she was even born. As a result, she has right hemiplegia, a form of cerebral palsy that affects the strength and function of her right side.
Ballasiotes says she grew up doing able-bodied sports like soccer, ballet, and softball…until the sports grew more competitive. She says she was slower than the rest of the kids.
Her mother, Mary Kay Ballasiotes, says her disability made it harder to participate.
“She kept getting blisters because of her A-F-O’s that she was wearing,” Mary Kay said. “So, that really didn’t work out. She did softball and her dad tried to rig her mitt so she didn’t have to take off the mitt and put it back on.”
But she says things changed for Ballasiotes when she found an adapted cycling program as an undergrad at UNC. When she couldn’t balance on a two-wheeled bike, she got a recumbent trike through a Challenged Athletes Foundation grant.
“It was just like this whole world opened up to her, where she was free,” her mother described.
Adapted sports have allowed Ballasiotes to participate without her disability being a barrier. Now, Ballasiotes enjoys a variety of sports, like cycling, pickleball, and rock climbing.
Michelle Ballasiotes scales a climbing wall. (Photo via Cameron Thomas.)
A pediatric occupational therapist and board member for North Carolina Adapted Sports, NCAS, Ballasiotes wants to help kids participate in sports in their own way.
“Because,” she says, “it breaks my heart to see kids who have physical limitations and they’re just like, ‘Yeah, no, I didn’t do that because I can’t.’ I want to be like, ‘No, let’s figure this out.'”
Her cycle coach and fellow NCAS board member, Stephen Knight, says she’s been at the forefront of this change in the state. He says that Ballasiotes was one of two adaptive cyclists in a cyclocross race last year.
“It was the same course that everyone else was doing,” Knight says, “except for we bypassed the barriers and a few places were the turns were just…you know, they’re pretty tight.”
In the end, Ballsiotes had to race a longer distance than her opponents. The race generated enthusiasm for modifying the loop at Lake Crabtree in Morrisville. Completed in August, the existing trails were widened and new bridges were built to be more accessible.
Ballasiotes hopes to compete even more in the future, but wants physically disabled athletes to be recognized in official adapted categories.
“We might be faster or as fast as some able-bodied people,” she says, “but we’re on a different machine than the rest of the people.”
She says adaptive athletes should be recognized as more than random participants who won’t end up on the podium. They’re athletic, with technique and skills too.
“But,” says Ballasiotes, “I’m making do with what I’ve got and… zoom, zoom.”
Stories from the UNC Media Hub are written by senior students from various concentrations in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media working together to find, produce and market unique stories — all designed to capture multiple angles and perspectives from across North Carolina.
