Winter Paralympics Games Start in Beijing This Friday, March 4
Mountainwatch|Reggae Elliss
The 2022 Paralympics start in Beijing this Friday and Australia has a team of nine athletes competing: six alpine skiers, two sighted guides and one snowboarder.
PyeongChang 2018 dual bronze medallist Melissa Perrine and fellow three-time Paralympian Mitchell Gourley are heading into their fourth Games as the most experienced members of the Team. Ben Tudhope, at 22 the youngest member of the team and the lone snowboarder, is competing in his third games after making his debut at the 2014 games in Sochi when he was just 14-years-old.
Tudhope, team captain along with Melissa Perrine, has been in sizzling form coming into the games, winning four consecutive world cup snowboard cross gold medals and was crowned overall World Cup Champion for the 2021/22 season.
The other members of the team are all competing in alpine skiing including Rae Anderson who competed in the summer Paralympics in Rio and becomes the 7th athlete to reprint Australia in both summer and winter Paralympic games. The other members are Sam Tait and Patrick Jensen, who are competing at their second games, Josh Hanlon and sighted guides Amelia Hodgson and Bobbi Kelly who will each make their games debut.
Australia originally named 10 athletes for the team, but alpine skier Jonty O’Callaghan had to withdraw after suffering a broken collarbone in training incident in Austria last week. It would have been O’Callaghan’s second games and the 24-year-old was due to compete in all five alpine skiing disciplines.
The Paralympics run from March 4-13 and you can catch all the action on the Seven network and its streaming platform 7plus, starting with the opening ceremony at 11am this Friday, March 4.
