Stargardt disease “the most common form of inherited juvenile macular degeneration. The progressive vision loss associated with Stargardt disease is caused by the death of photoreceptor cells in the central portion of the retina called the macula,” according to blindness.org.

In short, Stargardt disease decreases the sight of the carrier and makes their central vision progressively more blurry and distorted.

This disease has impacted MSU alumnus Aaron Scheidies and is the reason he’s even thought about participating in triathlons.

“Stargardt’s disease is the reason I got into the sport of triathlon in the first place and it has taught me a ton,” Scheidies said via email. “Stargardt’s has forced me to learn how to be flexible and adjust on the fly. I have had to adapt and find accommodations to keep up with the fast pace and ever-changing society.”

Scheidies is able to compete in triathlon events because of certain accommodations for his disease.

“In sport, I am able to compete through the use of a sighted guide that is attached by a tether in the swim and run in triathlon and ride a tandem bike,” Scheidies said. “The guide/pilot is my means to compete, and I am so appreciative to have great people and a great team of support in helping me get to where I have in my athletic career.”

Scheidies was a cyclist in this year’s Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“When I found out I was going to Rio, I was ecstatic, as it had been a long up and down rollercoaster ride that I could write a book about (it),” he said.

Originally, Scheidies was ranked number one in triathlon in 2014, but his sport class was cut from the Paralympics in late 2014, Scheidies said.

This forced him to switch events from triathlon to cycling, which didn’t get off to a great of start during the Paralympic trials.

“At the Paralympic Trials in cycling (I had) a mechanical problem with the bike with only 1/2 mile to go. Which led to initially not be selected for the team, to the Russians being banned from the Paralympics and finding that I would be competing in Rio,” Scheidies said.

His preparation for cycling didn’t change that much compared to his training for triathlon, he said.

“The only difference in my preparation was that (I) had to prepare two times as (much as) I first had to prepare for the Paralympic Trials,” Scheidies said.

Scheidies said his division, the blind/visually impaired classification, is the most difficult classification in the world.

“You could be the best in your class in the United States and be top five in the world and not get selected, so the trial is as big or bigger event than the Paralympic Games,” he said.

When Scheidies finally got the call that he was going to Rio, his training ramped up because he was only notified about competing in Rio three weeks before the Paralympics.

“I didn’t think I was going to Rio, I had to attempt to (get) myself back into top form as quickly as possible whereas the rest of my competition would be trying to slowly decrease training load as the games approached,” Scheidies said. “My training over the last three weeks included being on the tandem bike with my pilot Ben Collins six days a week for about three hours.”

On top of this, Scheidies and Collins trained with the rest of the U.S. Paralympic Team in southern California to get back into top cycling shape.

“We spent much of our riding along the Pacific coast and in the mountains inland from the coast,” Scheidies said. “I also worked on core strengthening and upper body strengthening with the TRX (total-body resistance workout) to maximize my stability and power transfer into the pedals.”

The expectation wasn’t necessarily to win gold in the road race cycling, but to at least finish in the top five since the road race is a specialty event for Scheidies.

“The expectations were very hard to determine, as we found out that we were selected for Rio very late in the game,” Scheidies said. “If we would have known we were going months before, we would have definitely had more of an expectation of winning Gold, but it’s hard to make this a realistic expectation when you find out just three weeks prior to the (Rio) games.”

Scheidies and Collins ended up finishing 12th out of 22 in the road race trials and only finished 30 seconds outside of fifth place in the 120 km, or 174.6 miles, track that included two 30 km loops. Both had challenging climbs and “wicked” descents.

“I would have liked a better performance ... this shows the closeness of the competition,” Scheidies said. “There were definitely some things that happened right before the race that impacted our performance.”

One of those issues was the chain on their tandem bike broke during warm-ups. Although Scheidies was able to do some of his warm-up, the broken chain threw off their whole warm-up routine, he said.

“The pre-check of the bikes was ridiculously slow and therefore it became our official bike check and I was unable to warm up anymore,” he said. “For the last 30 minutes prior to my race I was unable to stay warmed up and therefore went into the race with cold muscles. This definitely impacted our performance over the first half of the time trial and probably was the difference from fifth to 12th place, but I don’t think this was the difference of us and the podium.”

During the road race with 50 kilometers left, Scheidies and Collins were still in the lead group when the brakes on bike decided to give way.

“We went down the wicked descent of switchbacks, our brakes seemed to give out and we went sliding into (a) ditch,” Scheidies said. “Come to find out the brakes burnt the braking surface on the rim of the wheel and it delaminated away from the wheel. Our wheel was totally toasted, and we had to stop and wait for a wheel change. It was only a short change until our team car pulled up with the wheel change, but by that time the lead pack had rode away.”

Falling behind, Scheidies and Collins had to fight their way back to the front.

“We did an amazing job of coming back and catching many of the people that passed us, but we were only able to climb back to the pack that composed eighth to eleventh place,” he said. “We had spent a lot of energy in making this come back and the three teams that were with us beat us out in a sprint in the end.”

Finishing in 11th place didn’t damper Scheidies views on the race and their overall performance, he said.

“There was nothing we could have done about the issue with the wheel, and come to find out the Canadian team had the same thing happen,” he said. “I was very happy with how we responded and how we finished the rest of the race.”