Medal Success For Hester and Benjie at the European Winter Para Sports Event

Year 8 pupil Hester, (who was diagnosed blind as a baby) and her brother Benjie (Year 10) report back on representing GB Snowsport at the first ever European Winter Para Sports event in Poland.

Getting the call up to ski race for GB

I have been working at my ski racing since I was 7 years old in the hope one day of getting the call to represent GB at the Paralympics. Even though I had been hoping for this moment it felt surprising and almost shocking to get the invitation to go and race at my first international competition. We had a week training in Austria already booked which was good so my Guide (brother Benjie) and I could do some race practise together before we went. It was great to get some race time on my new Giant Slalom skis because I have not been able to do much before as we usually train indoors at Milton Keynes.  Unfortunately, Benjie and I had a crash mid-way through our training week which knocked our confidence a bit. Even so, we knew we had to carry on and make the best of our training together so we could be proud of ourselves when we represented GB for the first time. 

Arriving at Camp

After a tiring week of training and a long day of travel we arrived into Wroclaw (Poland) and transferred to our hotel to get some sleep. Walking into breakfast on that first morning knowing that the dining room was full of experienced international competitors and our new team mates felt like the first day of secondary school all over again: you don’t know who to sit with; you feel awkward and shy.  Luckily my fellow team mates, almost all ex-armed forces, kindly took me under their wings and showed me the ropes. This helpfulness could not extend to the slopes as they were all Nordic skiers and snowboarders so Benjie and I, as Alpine skiers, had to head up the mountain on our own! In fact, much to our surprise, my brother and I made up the entire Great British alpine team at this event, as the elite team with all the coaches and support staff, were in Russia at the World Cup.  As a result of this my mother was now self-appointed as our personal trainer, which mainly consisted of her carrying our skis and standing at the bottom of the piste with mars bars in hand. But the real training was left up to Benjie and me. 

Race day

After two training days it was time to race GS and then Slalom. Day one was a bit of a shambles. Waiting in the gate in snowy conditions, poor visibility (for Benjie) and wearing only our skin-tight race suits we were shivering with cold and nerves. We were counted in and set off at speed determined to put down a safe time for our first run. Infuriatingly we had been sent too soon and the previous racer had not completed the course. As we were bearing down on them Benjie realised what had happened and skied us out of the gates to avoid what could have been a very serious highspeed crash. We had to re-run. As we headed up the seemingly slowest lift in the world – still in only our skimpy race suits – we were frozen. By the top I could not feel anything except my body shaking and Benjie’s lungs were screamingly painful. We were not in a good state. Luckily the French coach scooped us up and insisted we were sent down the course again immediately, so we did not freeze. We loved the French coach! In the end we made a good race but were pipped into 4th place by a narrow margin. 

Benjie’s point of view

 After a slightly disappointing 4th place in the GS the previous day, we woke up and walked down to breakfast with a mixture of nerves and pure concentration on the race we had lying ahead of us. It had snowed heavily throughout the night and as we got to the race piste, we got quite a shock when we realised that the piste bashers had not prepared the side of the slope where we had to warm up and it was minefield of devastating powdery moguls.  Our training slalom runs were messy and exhausting. This caused our morale to begin to break down and while I was furious that we had nowhere to properly prepare for the race, Hester struggled with the harsh conditions and went silent, which as our communication is the single most important thing in Visually Impaired skiing this was a possible disaster. After a couple more difficult runs on the deeply rutted lumpy powder I realised that I had to get Hester enthusiastic and positive again or we wouldn’t have the energy to get the podium finish we were striving for. 

We started back up the mountain on the chairlift and I started building back up both our lines of communication and Hester’s confidence. I reminded her about how hard we had worked for the past 2 weeks and how much we both wanted this. This reanimated the competitive nature (which I believe every athlete has) in Hester and soon we were enthusiastically planning out how we were going to attack the course. I split the course into 2 sections in my explanation, in order to help Hester visualise it.  I formed a strategy where we would work our outside skis much harder in the icier first half of the course and as we reached the point where the snow became crunchy, but not icy, I would urge Hester to put 100% effort into every turn to regain all the speed we had lost on the ice. Then we had our course inspections where I tried my best to memorise every turn and tried to help Hester paint a mental image of certain areas, so she knew where I was going to give certain commands. The emphasis was on focussing on how your body moves as you make the turn and how to use weight distribution in a way the let you really be ready to attack the next gate.

We reached the top of the slope and performed a satisfying first run. After listening to our time over the loudspeaker, we headed straight into the warmth of the café. We were sitting in 4th (just behind Poland) by 0.3 seconds. There we would have to wait for the next hour. With hands and feet being warmed beside the fire, we drank hot chocolates and I mentally prepared for how we were to ski the new course well enough to come away with the podium finish we wanted so much. That hour was probably the most stressful of my life so far. We had felt the pain and disappointment of just missing out on bronze the day before and I knew that I really couldn’t feel that way again. I continued to try my best to keep Hester in a talkative, happy headspace because I knew that’s when we ski at our best. Finally, it was time to climb back onto the chairlift and go inspect the new course. During the course inspections I realised just how icy the top half of the course had become. I made sure we were going to perform our best skiing possible on the ice so that we wouldn’t lose speed. Again, we had to wait at the top for our second run of the day. Then, we were off. 

Our start felt quick, communication was on point, we pushed through the ice and by the end of the course my mouth was dry, and my legs were screaming but I knew we had done it. Almost collapsing as we passed through the finish gate, we listened eagerly for our time to be announced. 1:04.13 was our time, we had beaten the Pole! Later the Austrians finished their runs and claimed both gold and silver with impressive times, but we didn’t mind. We had the pure elation of a medal at our first competition.

Medal ceremony

Getting to stand on the podium with our National Flag behind us felt like a huge honour and now seems rather unreal. As we listened to the Austrian National Anthem ( not for the first time that evening) and shook hands with all the officials and the Austrian pairs who had taken Gold and Silver we imagined what it would be like to be listening to the British anthem and how that must feel for those who have had that experience. We hope, one day, that we will be those proud athletes and so look forward to our next race.