Locally trained adaptive athletes to get shot at 2014 Paralympics

“95-percent of their training time was here in Crested Butte”

Adaptive snowboard athletes, coaches and fans from around the world received big news last week when para-snowboarding was accepted into the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia.
As a result, there’s a good chance that a handful of para-snowboard athletes that lived, trained and competed here in Crested Butte this past winter, will be representing the U.S. in Russia.
Para-snowboarding is run on a boardercross course one athlete at a time in a time trial format with a slingshot start.
Prior to the 2011-2012 ski season, Adaptive Action Sports (AAS) committed to setting up shop here in Crested Butte. Co-founder and Executive Director for AAS Daniel Gale and partner Amy Purdy founded AAS in 2005 in California after meeting right here in Crested Butte. Gale attended Western State College and has always had an affinity for the valley.
The AAS, their athletes and the Adaptive Sports Center built a symbiotic relationship this past winter. While the Adaptive Sports Center provides a facility to store AAS gear and vehicles to transport athletes, AAS athletes turned around and helped out the Adaptive Sports Center. All of the AAS athletes received training from the Adaptive Sports Center to become certified Level I Adaptive snowboard instructors.
Crested Butte Mountain Resort jumped on board as well and provided a boardercross training course on which the athletes could train that was also open to the public.
Getting snowboarding into the Paralympics was an initial goal of both Purdy, who is also an adaptive snowboard athlete, and Gale when they started AAS.
“It was a primary goal,” says Gale. “And to have that day arrive is historic.”
 “There was a crew working on this for the past six years,” adds Chris Koepe who works as both an instructor for the Adaptive Sports Center and with AAS as Winter Program Director and instructor. “The last four years we kind of expedited it.”
In August 2011 the IPC accepted their request but the host country decided otherwise.
“Originally the word from Russia was that they weren’t going to accept it but it wasn’t really clear why,” says Gale.
But that didn’t stop the athletes, their coaches, USASA or the World Snowboarding Federation as they kept pressing the issue.
“We heard the process wasn’t over,” says Gale.
Last week, it was announced that there would be men’s and women’s para-snowboarding events at the 2014 Winter Paralympics.
“The decision was made at 4 a.m. on May 2,” explains Koepe. “A couple of us were up because we knew it was happening. We’re super stoked about the sport being in the Paralympics. It’s an incredible opportunity for athletes all over the world.”
“We did some high-fiving and had a little celebration,” adds Gale. “It’s definitely incredible news.”
Gale believes that a successful para-snowboarding competition at the 2012 X Games and a “well run” World Cup event in France in February helped push para-snowboarding into the limelight.
Purdy, Evan Strong and Brandon Robins are three AAE athletes who spent a majority of the 2011-2012 season training in Crested Butte.
“Ninety-five percent of their training was right here in Crested Butte,” says Koepe.
“It turned out to be fantastic,” says Gale. “We’re thankful we had the course.”
Strong had an extremely successful season on the competition circuit. After a bobble in the X Games left him in third place overall, Strong came back to win the World Cup in France. Purdy won two regional gold medals and took second place at the World Cup and is the top ranked woman in the world. And Robins, who just started the sport this past winter, is on the cusp of breaking into the top of the world of para-snowboarding placing sixth at the World Cup while still healing from two broken ribs and a broken wrist.
Gale believes that all three may be making the trip to Sochi.
“We know that two of our athletes, Evan and Amy, will be on the team and Brandon might as well,” says Gale.
Gale and the AAS will now assess its next move for their athletes as they set their sights on Sochi. Gale points out that most athletes have four years to prepare but with the late announcement, the local crew of Strong, Purdy and Robins now have some time to make up. As a result, AAS is working on getting the athletes as much time on snow as possible including the chance of heading up to Mt. Hood in June. Whether or not they will remain in Crested Butte for next year has yet to be decided.
“We’ve got some meetings coming up to assess how it went,” says Gale. “The relationship with the Adaptive Sports Center and CBMR went really well. We’re excited to have a training center where we can get dialed in.”
“A year and a half is going to float by pretty quick,” says Koepe. “It’s 669 days from now, we’ve got a counter going.”