A Swift Half

Hi Board Geners

For those of you fresh to bg this is just a little Blogette to keep you all updated and hopefully interested in the up and downs in the world of Para-Snowboarding or Snowboarders with Disabilities.

I’m a Double Above Knee Amputee (DAK) and have been for the last 28yrs. I have been snowboarding or trying to snowboard? for the last 15yrs. In future Blogs I’ll endeavour to incorporate how that journey has gone with all its trials and tribulations, from the bindings I use to the general acceptance and development of snowboarding for people with disabilities on and off the hill.

But for now, a rundown of last season and then a heads up on the forthcoming season.

Got the season off to a great start with a trip to Landgraaf, Holland along with a team of riders from The Armed Forces Para-Snowsport Team (AFPST) Snowboard Pod.

Lee Lloyd (another DAK and British Veteran) and I continued with our development and skills on what we now call the NSB’s (Non-Suspended Bindings) and the week went well.

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Then off to Breckenridge, Colorado with BLESMA, a British Limbless Veterans Charity where we were asked to help teach a young American girl Lily aged 11 who was also a DAK and the daughter of a friend and US Veteran and Para-Snowboarder. She was up and running within two days and lovin’ it.

This was the second time we had been asked to help with snowboard sessions for a DAK, the first being with a British girl Ellie 14yrs old and a quad amputee having lost her limbs as a result of Meningitis when she was 16 months old. Ellie is a Paralympic swimmer who is now in the GB Swimming Team but is very determined to become a snowboarder as well, she has been on her first snowboarding holiday to the Pyrenees using a pair of the NSB’s.

The season continued at a pace with Lee and I going with AFPST to Tignes for training and the Royal Navy Champs.

We had a pretty big group with us that included Kat Brown who has Systemic Sclerosis which by the way doesn’t stop her doing anything, Alex Tate a single Below Knee amputee (destined for big things within competition snowboarding) and Ben Shaw, the UK’s and we think the world’s first totally blind snowboarder. Although we found getting about in Tignes quite a challenge with very little accessible accommodation available to us, we had a fantastic two weeks joining in the comps wherever we could, always up against able-bodied riders but giving it our best shot regardless. The Banked Slalom course was a scream and the coaching from James Sweet (@superradness) as always second to none. I headed off to Sere Chevalier with Alex and Ben’s Guide/Coach Jim Hossel RM for a week. Fist two days were just OK but then…WOW the POW dropped. The three of us had a real blast in waist deep white stuff (that’s chest deep to me) and pretty much smashed the whole area even though digging out after a spill was ‘nails.’

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Next, onto Meribel for the British Inter-Services Champs where once again we joined in the comps where we deemed it appropriate. The Banked Slalom had some features that to be fair got the better of me with a couple of slams that didn’t do my pelvis or spine any good but it was a cracker of a course and once I’d got the hang of the first feature and plucked up the courage to send it I had some great runs.

The week in Meribel went quick then it was home to UK for a spell before off to Laax for the BRITS. The BRITS are always a fantastic way to end the season with stacks of entertainment on and off the slopes usually instigated by the irrepressible, hugely popular and all round good bloke Ed Leigh (BBC Ski Sunday Presenter). I did an piece for Ski Sunday with interviewer Jenny Jones which can be seen on BBC TV early December and entered the Banked Slalom comp as in the over 40’s category, didn’t qualify, but had a blast with a few decent runs.

Finished the week with a topper of a day in powder and blue skies and a few crackin’ runs with Ben Shaw/Jim Hossel RM, Alex Tate and Kat Brown. From Laax it was off to Saas Grund and a week with the Mentelity Games an event organised by Bibian Mentel a Dutch Paralympic snowboarder and the Mentelity Foundation. This event allows for people of all ages with any disability, together with families and friends, to come along and experience and participate in lessons and clinics at every level and discipline within Para-Snowsports. The week was a resounding success ‘It was all about Mentelity’.

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I left Saas Grund and headed to Kuhtai, Austria for three days of filming with Ashley Wiggins of Randall Media. Ash was making a film called ‘People Who Rize’ we had a ton of fun over the three days trying to get the shots he needed then had a well-earned beer at the Mooshaus A huge thanks to all involved in the film @ABSairbag for keeping us safe @gretakahnhair for the loan of the studio @innsbrucktourism for everything you do @jonessnowboardsaustria for the awesome board that is the… Mind Expander @mooshaus for the best night’s sleep and cold beer. Oh! and Ashley of course @RandallMediaFactory for just being awesome.

So that was the season at an end…. what’s coming up this season? I hear you ask.

Well it’s a packed season for us at AFPST with stacks more fun and stacks more ridin’. I have a trip to Stubai in the offing, where hopefully I can gain a coaching qualification then off to Breck again with the AFPST gang for the Hartford Ski Spec and some thin air. After Christmas and New Year, it’s into the comps and training trips big time at Tignes, La Plagne, Saalbach, Meribel, Saas Grund and Laax with a cheeky little whisper that we might possibly get down to Oz and NZ later next year… WoopWoop! We have some new guys and girls joining AFPST this coming season so new skills to put into practice and with that will come improvisation, adaption and a dash of overcoming all the things that disabilities and Snowsports demand. If any of you Dudes and Dudettes see us on the slopes, please feel free to come over and say Hi.

I promised an update on the ‘Bindings Situation’…

Well, a British organisation called CFMS (Centre for Modelling and Simulation) led by Davide Bianchi, have put 500 hrs of work into designing a prototype binding that incorporates a form of suspension so that the impact of snowboarding has on the knee less body is reduced significantly. This design has been 3D printed by Airbus (yep that Airbus) and I am in the process of trialling the design. At time of writing all is going well with a few tweaks and mods having been identified, we will be putting the Suspended Test Rig 2’s through their paces over the coming season with a view to getting a detailed design produced in 2020 if not before. This iteration of the Bindings previously known as NSB’s (Non-Suspended Bindings) is a huge leap forward…pun intended… I am convinced that they are going to revolutionise snowboarding for the DAK community and potentially the wider disabled community. In doing so I am hoping that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) will then see that it would be advantageous for all if there was an extra category in the Winter Paralympic Programme. If this is indeed the case, then we just need to get the numbers together and China 2022 Winter Paralympics will be in our sights.  

All fun and all good

All the best everyone and Be Lucky.

Swifty