Para-nordic sit skiing. Image - courtesy James Millar

Dominic is a LW11 paraplegic and competes in the sit-ski division and James an LW8 and has a congenital birth defect with the absence of his right for-arm, he will competing in the standing class.

Athletes are divided into categories

There are three categories for para-nordic skiing; sitting, standing and blind. Within each category there are specific classes that represent different disabilities; across the board athletes' disabilities range from partial vision to total blindness, from mechanical or motor-neuron disabilities and upper and lower limb amputation to paraplegia.

James Millar. Image - courtesy James Millar

Each athlete fits into a class as per their disability. As bad as it sounds, athletes are given a percentage that is related to their level of disability. To explain it if you are to ski with no poles it would be a lot harder then skiing with one pole and a lot different again to using both poles. Depending on the disability the athlete is given a percentage that correlates to the restrictiveness of their disability so that the time they finish is their percentage calculated from the real time it took them to ski the course. This system has been set up to make the playing field more level as some disabilities are more debilitating then others.

Both standing and sitting skiers will compete over three distances; sprint, middle and long. The sprint distance is around 1km, the middle 10km and the long distance 15km for sitting and 20km for standing men.

To break it down, there are two main types of techniques for standing skiers and a single technique used for sitting skiers.

Sit-skiers are strapped into sleds witch vary in their construction considerably depending on the athletes disability. Sit-skiing comprises of only one main technique; the double pole, very similar to that of the standing skiers but with out the use of the athletes lower body.

Standing and blind skiers have two different techniques, exactly the same as able-body skiers; classic and skate.

Classic skiing has been around since the dawn of time, it is also referred to as diagonal stride of Nordic. There are four types of classic technique.
Diagonal Stride- this technique is used for flat and uphill terrain.
Double Pole Kick - this technique is mainly used for flat and slightly downhill terrain.
Double Pole - exactly like it sounds, loading both poles at the same time to get maximum efficiency in flat and downhill terrain.
Herringbone - used for very steep hills. The skis are placed in a V pattern giving the person effective grip to the snow and allowing them to climb uphill terrain otherwise not negotiable with a diagonal stride.

James Millar racing in the skate skiing style. Image - courtesy James Millar

Skate skiing is the new age cross-country technique, a motion similar to that of rollerblading on snow with poles, the physicality of technique being totally different, its the easiest way to someone to understand the motion. There are three types of skate technique.
V1 - is your hill climbing technique
V2 - is your middle gear and depending on the course used most in a race.
V2 ALTERNATE - is the highest gear and used when moving at high speed, it is effective on flat and both slightly up and downhill terrain.

tags: olympic, feature, features, para-nordic, skiing, james, millar, dominic, moneypenny, paralympics, australian, team

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