Our journey to reclassification and racing
In November 2019 James was declassified. It was the most devastating experience we’d experienced as a married couple, and probably as an adult. James and I spent many months trying to figure out what had gone wrong and why. We submitted complaints to the International Paralympic Committee, who refused to deal with us as individuals, but only through our national governing body. While this was going on, we tried to continue ski training.
We didn’t know whether James would be reclassified, despite having ample evidence that he was eligible to be classified with medical tests, genetic tests and eye tests. We didn’t trust the system which had so spectacularly failed us. We didn’t know when James would get the opportunity to be reclassified. And we didn’t know whether it was worth hemorrhaging tens of thousands of pounds to pay for said ski training without a guarantee we could ever race again.
There are no other ski races we could enter. There is not a circuit of ski races for disabled skiers outside of the World Para Alpine Ski races (which James was declassified from). Therefore if James couldn’t get reclassified, he could never ski race again.
The mental toll was extreme. We’d both suffered massively with mental illness as a direct result of not only the declassification itself, but the subsequent (in)actions taken by the International Paralympic Committee. The classification rules state that you have the right to be seen in another sport which runs the same classification process, however in reality there was no agreement between sports to enable this to happen.
James was declassified in November, 2019.
In December 2019, we’d hoped James might be able to get reclassified at the para Nordic classification event in Norway, but the IPC stated there were no available slots for James. A potential event in Austria the same month also did not happen.
The next opportunity globally for James to be reclassified was in China in Beijing. It was a huge expense (remember we’re completely self-funded) and commitment, but one we deemed worth it. James was going to fly out there with his dad, while I stayed in Austria (where we’d been training) with our van and the two cats. James and his dad booked flights, arranged visas, booked accommodation and train travel and were all set to go. Then Covid happened. The event was cancelled.
Distraught, we were then also offered a classification event in April, 2020 in the United States which we considered, but that too was cancelled.
The race season was over and the world was locking down.
We’d kept training over the winter in the vain hope that we might still get classified while there were races left in the season. However, the thought of heading into summer without any potential events confirmed was a massive blow. How on earth were we going to try and maintain momentum training in the gym without the motivation of knowing James had a race licence? Should we try and train on the glaciers over the summer (if possible) and spend the money to do so? We entered lockdown despondent and low on hope.
We did manage to get away for ski training over the summer once or twice, and have made some incredible friends from that experience (Georgia, Joe and Murray I’m looking at you!) We ski trained on the glacier in Les Deux Alpes in France, and Stelvio in Italy. Yet autumn 2020 brought more lockdowns and more restrictions and worsening mental health.
My mental health was declining massively in the run up to Christmas, and then suddenly Tier 4 in London was announced. From midnight on Saturday, 19 December 2020, London would be put into a new level of restrictions from which people would be unable to leave.
We’d got a new classification event planned for January 2021 in Veysonnaz, Switzerland, and were desperate to go. I didn’t know how much more our mental health could take if we missed it, and I was starting to seriously worry about James. If we didn’t leave London that day, we’d be stuck in London. If we didn’t get into France by the 31st December 2020, Brexit would mean that we wouldn’t be able to enter until a much later date. After ten minutes of conversations, we decided to go.
We booked the last ferry to Calais on that day, and had an hour to pack our van, kit, cats and skis. We didn’t know when we’d be home again. We literally chucked everything we could find and hit the road. The border between France and UK closed the day after, so we drove direct to Switzerland as fast as we could.
Skip forward a couple of months, and James and I are renting a friend’s apartment in Nendaz, Switzerland. Despite races running, the classification event in Veysonnaz was cancelled. We are skiing every day, but haven’t been able to access training in gates with the lockdown and extortionate Swiss prices. A couple of countries have slopes open for their local residents; others have slopes open for professional skiers, but fortunately Switzerland kept its slopes open for every one. We ski as much as we can.
However James’ mental health is deteriorating. He’s starting to lose hope of ever racing too much, and stops wanting to ski. He declares he’s not going to ski again, and calls our personal trainer to explain he’s retiring. It’s just all too much.
Then something changes.
Our GB Snowsport contact emails us to say there’s a classification event in Austria in 4 days time. We could only attend as we were already on the continent (we wouldn’t have been able to have left the UK for this), and we have PCR tests to arrange and paperwork to print out, including formal invitations from the Austrian officials to enter their country. I’ve never been as stressed in my life.
The classification event itself was chaotic. The organisers hadn’t managed to find a technician for the machine James needed to be tested on, so the staff there were searching for instructions online before testing James. They reviewed his previous results (which aren’t allowed to be taken into account) and joked about James being ineligible again. It was unbelievably cruel and apparent they had no understanding at all about how their words and actions impacted on the disabled athletes. It was one of the worst hours of our lives and something that traumatised James. But James was reclassified as his original level, a B2 visually impaired athlete.
It took days for the adrenaline to wear off (and for us to sober up), and we started picking our life back up again.
We didn’t know whether the mental trauma was going to be too much for James to be able to process, or whether he could get back to racing again. I was scared to ask, and wanted to take things one day at a time. We hadn’t had any coaching in gates since February 2020, and we had no idea what our ability level was.
But we had to give it a go.
A few weeks later we travelled to Malbun, Liechtenstein for the Europa Cup Finals races in slalom and Giant Slalom. We had no coach, and anxiety levels were at an all time high. I (Alice) had to attend the team captain’s meeting alone, and deal with the added complexity of Covid restrictions too. But the hosts (Sarah and Ralf) were hugely welcoming and approachable which made the situation much easier to deal with. And before too long we were standing at the start gate.
It was such a surreal experience. My heart rate was going at 172 bpm before we even started going. James was shaking so much he told me it reminded him of our wedding day, which made the lady beside us burst out laughing. And we went for it.
We managed 3 x third places on the podium for Giant Slalom and slalom, which we were immensely proud of. We were an anxious mess and still traumatised. But we were back.
We also raced in Hopfgarten and Gerlitzen in Austria in March, and ended up with the best results of our ski racing career in slalom and Giant Slalom. We are immensely proud of the fact we persevered and did so well, and are now working to put ourselves back together again and move onwards and downwards. We’ve been officially longlisted for the Paralympics in March 2022 which is unbelievable considering where we were this time a year ago. Watch this space!
