This year I will be missing the Winter Carnival as I am off to a Winter Carnival of a slightly different nature.
Every year the elite athletes from various extreme winter sport disciplines converge in one place to compete against the best of the best.
It is a dream of many snowboarders, free skiers and snowmobilers’ to be invited to the X Games.
The X Games is extreme, the jumps are bigger, the courses longer and I imagine the party at the end will be a celebration of making it out in once piece!
The guy that gives me the inspiration to get out and do it — whatever ‘it’ is — to the best of my ability has been invited to go to the X Games.
My husband Ian is a standing paraplegic; a snowboard accident in 1998 left Ian in a coma with a broken back and partially severed spinal cord. He came out of the coma within 12 hours of the injury, thankfully with few effects.
His spinal cord injury was incomplete leaving him with paralysis and only 50% of his muscles from the waist down. His stubborn and determined attitude (as Mom says, “you can’t kill weeds”) had him walking within three months of the injury and three years later he got back on a snowboard.
Since coming to Canada, Ian has been involved with the Canadian Adaptive Snowboard Program (through Snowboard Canada.)
There is an organization in the United STates called Adaptive Action Sports, which was started by a girl who lost both her legs to Meningitis. After losing her legs her dream was to see adaptive athletes compete at the X Games and this year she has made her dream come true.
On Sunday the X Games will host their first ever adaptive boarder-cross race. Six of the best adaptive riders in the world have been invited to compete.
They have one, six-man start; whoever gets to the bottom first wins gold. Simple.
Stay tuned to www.bettygohard.ca for daily updates on Ian’s training and information on when the race will air on ESPN.
Ian will be there representing Bettygohard, Red Mountain, RossVegas, Gerricks, Snowboard Canada and of course Rossland, where he gets his inspiration.
Don’t forget to cheer him on, wherever you might be on Sunday afternoon.
Natasha Lockey runs Bettygohard Women’s Action Sports Community.
Originally from New Zealand she has been living and
playing in the Kootenays for the past seven years.