Tania Modra

Tania Modra, OAM (born 14 January 1975) is an Australian Paralympic tandem cycling pilot. She was born in the South Australian town of Port Lincoln, grew up on a farm in Greenpatch, about 20 km north of Port Lincoln, and attended high school at Immanuel College. Eighteen months before the 2000 Sydney Games, her brother, visually impaired Paralympic tandem cyclist Kieran Modra, introduced her to tandem cyclist Sarnya Parker, despite Modra's lack of competitive cycling experience, and she became Parker's pilot. She won two gold medals at the Sydney Paralympics with Parker in the Women's 1 km Time Trial Tandem open and Women's Individual Pursuit Tandem open events, for which she received a Medal of the Order of Australia; the pair broke the world record in both events. At the 2000 Games, she also piloted her brother Kieran after his wife Kerry, who was pregnant with the couple's first child, had fainted due to low blood pressure during a quarter-final sprint race.