Dory Selinger, a decorated Paralympic cyclist and prosthetist, was killed yesterday after a vehicle struck him in McKinney. The 54-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene at the intersection of Alma Drive and State Highway 121, and news of his death quickly rippled through cycling circles across the U.S. and Europe.
Crash details and response
The McKinney Police Department responded to a crash involving a cyclist and a vehicle at Alma Drive and State Highway 121. Officers arrived and pronounced the cyclist dead at the scene. Police said the driver stayed at the location after the collision, and investigators have not yet released information about what led to the crash, according to FOX 4.
A decorated career
Selinger won a gold medal in track cycling at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics, then added a silver and two bronzes at the Sydney Games in 2000, according to Paralympic.org. He also set competitive Paralympic-era marks on the track and appears in historical listings of world records and results from the late 1990s and early 2000s, as documented in archived para-cycling records.
From survivor to prosthetist
Selinger’s rise in Paralympic sport followed an earlier tragedy. In 1993, a woman intentionally drove into a group of training cyclists, an attack that cost her her right leg below the knee and left other riders badly injured, according to archival coverage. He rebuilt his life through competition and later applied that experience to designing racing prostheses and working professionally in prosthetics, details that appear in earlier reporting on his recovery and innovations (SFGATE).
Community reaction
Friends and former teammates said Selinger balanced fierce competitiveness with quiet mentorship, and that his work helped change how amputee cyclists think about speed, comfort and fit on the bike. “The world got a little darker today without him there,” Bradley Cobb, a former teammate, told FOX 4.
The investigation into the crash is ongoing, and Selinger’s family has not yet released funeral arrangements. McKinney police are asking anyone who witnessed the collision or has video of the incident to contact the department.
