Disabled skiing - Ben Clatworthy, Racing and Sports Correspondent
Tuesday September 29, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

When you think of all the ways of skiing these days it's not surprising that more disabled people are heading out on the slopes. For my family the development of the sit-skis has changed how we function.

You see my 13-year old brother, Stefan, is disabled and untill 5 years ago he would be left at home as the rest of the family headed of to Courchevel on our annual skiing holiday. Our Mum and Dad, Helen and Martyn Clatworthy, both PlanetSKI readers said, "We love our skiing and we would never miss it, but we hated leaving Stefan at home."

Exhilarating stuffNow Stefan bombs around the slopes of The Trois Vallee just like a normal skier. He may not be able to walk or talk but he certainly has no difficulties communicating his love of skiing with the rest of the world.

It is becoming a more routine sight to see disabled people on the slopes enjoying their skiing, but it is hard to understand what it must be like to fly down the slopes on a sit-ski.

So there is only one way to find out what it is like.  Climb in one and give it a go. It was terrifying!



My brother, Stefan, is very severely disabled, which means that he is unable to control the chair fully himself so Thierry Guigonnet, a ski teacher from ESF Les Menuires & St Martin de Belleville is right behind him all the way.

Stefan and ThierryThierry has been supporting disabled skiers for 15 years and the ski school he works for now has 8 different types of ski chairs for disabled skiers allowing them to help a person with any variety or magnitude of disability.
 
Last season, at The British Land National Ski Championships, I caught up with the British Adaptive Ski Team who told me that disabled skiing is becoming more popular every year, and the support for them in both Europe and the States is so much better than it once was and is improving all the time.

That said disabled skiers do come up against problems.

In The Trois Vallees ski area the resorts of Les Menuires, Val Thrones, St Martin de Belleville and Meribel have all invested in new equipment to allow easy access to the lift systems, meaning that the majority of lifts are open for use.

However in neighbouring Courchevel 25 out of the 56 lifts are not open to disabled skiers. 

We will bring you another video report on the seeming difference between the resorts later this week on PlanetSKI.

In the meantime check out this related story on PlanetSKI when we went out with former servicemen who had been injured in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan and how they had taken up sking since their injuries. 

PlanetSKI helped in a fund raising event for the "Help for Heroes Charity" in the Swiss resort.

It is inspiring stuff. 

For the Spirit of the Mountains.

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