Inverness cyclist Karen Darke features in new children's book
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ONE of Inverness’s most inspirational athletes and explorers features in a new children’s book on great women adventurers.
Paralympic road cyclist Karen Darke, who won silver at the 2012 London games, is one of 14 women included in the book, Fantastic Female Adventurers.
Paralysed from the chest down, in 1997 she rode a handbike along a giant stretch of the Silk Road from Kazakhstan to Pakistan in the Himalayas.
It was just one episode of courage and endurance from a woman who, nine years later, went sit-skiing 372 miles across Greenland’s icecap, using only her arms and poles to propel her.
She has also climbed Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn and Yosemite’s El Capitan, hand-cycled the length of Japan and the Alaskan coastline, and sea-kayaked the 1200-mile length of Canada.
Author Ms Dyu said: “At a time when there is a call for more books by and about people from different backgrounds, and women in particular, Fantastic Female Adventurers will hopefully inspire boys and girls of all ages and show them that anyone can achieve incredible things.”
Ms Darke was appointed an OBE in 2017 for services to sport.
