Daniel Abraham Gebru

Started: He took up Para cycling after his non-Para team was disbanded in 2012. (nos.nl, 19 Sep 2015) Reason: He had been a junior national champion in cycling in Eritrea, and when he moved to the Netherlands he joined a cycling club through his foster parents. In 2010, after a break from the sport, he met a former teammate who wondered why he had stopped cycling. He got back on his bike and earned a contract with the non-Para Marco Polo Cycling Team. When the team disbanded due to a lack of funds in 2012, he began to pursue Para cycling. (nos.nl, 19 Sep 2015) Awards: He and wheelchair basketball player Carina De Rooij were flag bearers for the Netherlands at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. (medias.paris2024.org, 28 Aug 2024) He received the Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands after winning a gold medal in the road race at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. (beatcyclingclub.com, 03 Feb 2020) Additional Info: FROM ERITREA TO NETHERLANDS He was born in Eritrea, but in 2000 he was told his parents were in Europe and he had to go and meet them. His parents had actually been caught up in the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, but they had arranged for him to leave the country if anything happened to them, so he was driven through Ethiopia to Kenya where he boarded a flight to Amsterdam, Netherlands. He had refugee status in Netherlands for the first eight years, but after the general amnesty in 2008 he was given a residence permit. He eventually learnt that his father had died in an Ethiopian prison, but his mother had escaped back to Eritrea. He would meet her again 13 years after he left his home country. (beatcyclingclub.com, 03 Feb 2020; nos.nl, 19 Sep 2015) AMBASSADOR He has served as an ambassador for NLTraining, an education provider in the Netherlands. He speaks to refugees about his experiences and the value of sport and education. (beatcyclingclub.com, 03 Feb 2020)