by Lisa Butterworth

At the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, adapted for athletes with disabilities held earlier this month, Claremont resident and para-cyclist Samantha Bosco claimed victory in the C4 individual time trial race, achieving something she’s been working toward her entire career: bringing home the gold.

Well, technically, her husband Andrew brought it home, because Bosco went straight from France to Germany to compete in the 2024 Para-Cycling Road World Championships, charging her partner to return to Claremont with the precious cargo.

“I was like, ‘You [protect] this thing with your life! Put an air tag on it.’ I just want to see her again,” Bosco said via Zoom from Zurich, referring to the gold medal she nicknamed V.V., short for voler vite, or “fly fast” in French. “I just want to make sure that it was real.”

Claremont’s Samantha Bosco working hard on September 4 during her gold medal winning C4 individual time trial race at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games. Photo/courtesy of Samantha Bosco

The last time the Courier spoke with Bosco, ahead of the PossAbilities U.S. Paralympics Cycling Time Trial, hosted by Loma Linda University of Health, there was no guarantee that it would be. But Bosco’s performance in that race cinched her spot on Team USA, setting her up to compete in Paris. That in itself was a huge win for Bosco, who, after qualifying to compete for Team USA at the Tokyo Paralympic Games three years ago, was sidelined by a cycling crash that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. She wasn’t sure she’d ever race again, which made her recent Paralympic experience that much sweeter.

“I feel like I was celebrating the moment I stepped off the plane; the moment I got to somewhere that said Team USA. Like, ‘Okay, you have officially put your feet on Paris soil, got your gear, you’re here.’ And I feel like I had that experience all the way through the games,” she said. “I tried to have moments of gratitude, whether it was a good cup of coffee to trading pins to just having fun exploring the village. I just tried to celebrate everything. I mean, I had a view of the Eiffel Tower from my bed!”

But despite all of this gratitude, Bosco, of course, still wanted to win. “I tried to do everything under the sun to make sure I was the most ready that I could be on that day,” she said.

The time trial race is an event in which riders race against the clock, alone down the track, starting a minute apart. “I took every precaution to not get sick,” Bosco said. “I worked on my mental health; I worked on my physical health; I worked on my bike. And I just remember being at the start line and being so focused.”

At first it seemed like it had all paid off. “I knew that the race was mine, riding that course, I could feel it in my bones,” Bosco said. Until she got to the first checkpoint and realized she was three seconds behind the top racer. “I was just, ‘Alright, let’s go. Got to give more.’ And I just raced as hard as I could. And I know that I didn’t get there alone. So I had every true motivation to win, whether it was winning for myself, winning for the journey, winning for all of the people who were behind me throughout the last three years.”

Even when Bosco crossed the finish line in a blur, because of the intervals between racers’ start times, her win was not yet secured. “Because I was so spent from just pouring my heart out onto the road, I promptly basically threw my bike and laid on the ground.”

What came next was one of the longest minutes of her life.

Then it was confirmed: with a time 4.92 seconds faster than Australia’s Meg Lemon and 5.09 seconds faster than Franziska Matile-Doerig from Switzerland, Bosco had won the gold medal.

She immediately sought out the contingent of her support system that was in the stands cheering her on: her husband, her parents, and two of her close friends. “When I saw Andrew, he picked me up and we were both crying and hugging,” she said. “It was a joyous, tearful party afterward for sure.”

The medal award ceremony took place later that day. It wasn’t Bosco’s first time on a Paralympic podium; she won two bronze medals at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. And she has stood tall on many non-Paralympic podiums too. But this one hit different.

“There’s only been two times I have gotten to feel that joyous on the podium. The first one was winning World Championships in 2022, the year after I came back from my injury, because that was such a big, big moment for me,” she said. “And this one is right up there with it, of feeling that pure joy and pure proudness for the work that went into it. And of course, relief that it all just came together and I was able to shine.”

Though she and Andrew went to Disneyland Paris following her big win, resting on her laurels is not in Bosco’s nature. Hence her immediate trek from Paris to Zurich, and the world championships, where on Wednesday she won a silver medal.

And she already has the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympic Games in her sights.

“Watching all of the home fans cheer for the French athletes was just incredible. It was so electric that it just made me so motivated to have that feeling myself. Whether or not I get there … to be determined,” Bosco said. But if there’s one thing she’s got, it’s determination — in spades. “I feel like V.V. is outnumbered by bronze,” she said with a laugh. “So she needs a gold buddy.”