Handicapped Para-skiing

No Guts, No Glory!

Challenged by the Black Diamond

By Tom Cannalonga

Publication Date: March 1999

At the beginning of this ski season I would never have imagined that I would be here. As I look over the edge of the headwall, my heart races. WOW, this is steep I think to myself. I see other skiers falling down as they try to ski this run. The other skiers around me at the top of the head wall are looking at me as if to say "you got guts man." I pick my line and look at my buddy, "See you at the bottom." With that I point my outrigger down the fall-line and accept the challenge of the black diamond.

My ski picks up speed quickly and fear creeps into my mind. I reach hard to initiate my first turn. I feel the ski carve into a turn and feel my shock compress under me. I reach down the fall-line with my downhill rigger. This unweights my ski. The shock decompresses and snaps me right around into another turn. I see a mogul right in front of me. I initiate my turn off the top of the mogul and get air...Slam! Right down into the rut, full compression, and I bottom out my shock. On the rebound I reach down the fall-line and snap into my next turn. Swish! Snow blasts up in my face. "YEAH!" I shout as I feel my self dominating this run. Turn after turn, I carve over the moguls through the ruts. Man and machine as one.

I catch a mogul that launches me into the air. As I land, I hit another and launch again. Fear grabs me - a pucker factor of ten. The edge of the slope is too close for comfort. I know for that moment I've lost control. With everything I have, I reach my rigger down the fall-line and the ski responds. Swish!...into a deep, hard carving turn. Ahh...the danger is over. Not yet, another skier cuts me off and forces me to take a mogul head on. POP! Big air. I land smooth and fast, reach out and carve a hard right and dump off some speed. I smooth out the last third of the run with some nice, tight, short radius turns and a big snow-cloud, hockey stop. Less than two minutes of full adrenalin RUSH!

I look around at the other skiers with their mouths hanging open, and receive my reward of silent praise. Then a few comment to me -Awesome! I look back up the trail and think to myself - Piece of Cake! I turn and point my rigger down hill, my ski seeks the fall-line, and I'm out of sight.

I love to ski and this is why...

Kirsty put it best when she said, "I wonder if people realize the restraints that I am freed from when I ski? There is no other time that I can move with such speed and agility than when I am skiing. The freedom it gives me helps be more accepting of my injury. I don't think that anyone understands this until they have (lived) it."

I was just a "normal" all American boy...but on July 26, 1981 at 4:20p.m. my life was changed. I was partying with my friends at the Jersey shore. We went to the ocean to swim before driving home. I jumped in the water and swam out. I picked up the first big wave to body surf back to shore. The wave got hold of me and slammed me down head first into the beach. With a pop, a flash of light, and an electric shock through my body, I was paralyzed. I received a spinal cord injury, I broke my neck. I am a C6-C7 incomplete quadraparetic.

My skiing days were over until I was watching ESPN one day and there it was - the Monoski. I had heard about adaptive skiing and just thought it was some lame answer to getting disabled people on the slope. Then I got on a Monoski...total freedom just like before, only faster. The winter of 1995 marked a major accomplishment for me - I skied for the first time in 14 years.

The Monoski is one of many adaptive skiing devices. Basically, it has a regular width ski about 180 to 210 cm long, a monoshock, and a seat. Your poles are called outriggers and have little skis on them.

Balance is the name of this game. Suprisingly, it is not at all as difficult as you would think. It's like riding a bike in a sense that it is easy to balance when you are moving. Did you ever try to stay in one place on a bicycle and balance yourself?...Not fun. But, once you start to move, inertia will keep you up. It's a blast!

If you know anyone who is disabled, turn them on to the sport. I wish I had found out about it ten years ago.

I give special thanks to my buddy Bill Searby, who gave me the push I needed to get on the slopes. He was there to help in any way, and to get me to be an independent skier once again. Thanks Bill!