Right after the conclusion of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games, it was the turn of the Paralympians to strut their stuff on the winter sports venues of South Korea.
The Winter Paralympics starts in a few days. Three New Zealanders will take part, a relatively small number, but all three have legitimate chances to claim medals.
The Kiwis’ delegation has two alpine skiers and one snowboarder.
Adam Hall and Corey Peters are the alpine skiers and Carl Murphy handles the snowboarding duties.
Hall won gold at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. He skis the downhill event, where he hold the world number three ranking. He also competes in slalom, where he is ranked eighth in the world. He also figures that as long as he is there, he might as well toss his hat into the ring for the super-G and super combined events.
He started racing all the way back in 2005 in the LW1 class, a class for athletes that have physical impairments affecting both legs. Hall suffers from muscle weakness due to the congenital condition spina bifida.
This will be his fourth appearance at the Winter Games.
Peters skis with the assistance of a Taranaski. He won the silver medal in his first Olympics at Sochi in 2014 and he was the only Kiwi to come back from Russia with a medal from those games. In these games, Peters will compete in the super-G and the downhill, along with super-combined and giant slalom.
He was injured in a 2009 motocross accident, suffering a crushed spinal cord. He is no stranger to the winners’ circle, taking one gold and two silvers in World Cup events and two silvers at the world para alpine skiing championships.
Carl Murphy, the snowboard competitor, is the only man to have represented New Zealand in snowboarding and he finished fourth in his first Olympics in Sochi in 2014. He competes in snowboard cross and banked slalom. He uses a custom-built carbon fibre prosthetic to enable him to board.