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Strong armed
By Jesse Hyde
Deseret News Paralympic specialist
SOLDIER HOLLOW — Imagine skiing for about 10 miles, up and down windy hills, in 40 minutes time — without the use of your legs.
Impossible?
Not for Russia's Sergey Shilov, a sit-skier who took gold in Friday's long-distance cross country race by finishing the men's 15K in 42:03. The silver medalist, Michail Terentiev, also of Russia, finished one minute later while Austria's Oliver Anthofer finished about two minutes back, taking bronze.
"You should try skiing up that hill just using your arms," American Robert Balk said after Tuesday's 10 K race, gesturing with his chin, his arms as taut as a pair of iron cables. "It's not easy. My girlfriend tried it, my friends tried it, and they didn't like it."
Who would? Skiing without your legs, whether the distance is 10 K or 100 yards, does not look like fun.
Yet, coming into the stadium on her first lap of the women's 10 K race, American Candace Cable wasn't wincing or cursing the day she strapped on a pair of skis — she seemed to be smiling.
She went another lap, and now the schoolchildren in the stands were waving their mini-American flags with furvor and chanting her name, and she seemed to smile again — even though she was going up a hill, her arms pulling her little body along.
"I had you all fooled, that was a wince," she said after the race, flashing a smile. "Sit-skiing is really hard. Doing the whole thing with just your arms is really hard."
Hard, unless your name is Ragnhild Myklebust, a 58-year-old Norwegian woman who must have been cut from a granite quarry.
Myklebust completed the women's 10 K race a minute ahead of silver medalist Svitlana Tryfonova of the Ukraine, finishing in 33:43. For us Americans, that's about six 5-minute miles — impressive with legs, mind-boggling without them.
But Myklebust's most awe-inspring feat of the day wasn't her time, it was the significance of her victory. She won gold in every event she entered at the 2002 Paralympics — the biathalon and the women's short distance, middle distance, long distance and relay races in cross country skiing — tying a record she already held.
She has now won 18 Paralympic gold medals, the most ever by one athlete.
"I think she should donate her body to science because she's an anomaly," American Beth Livingston said. "They need to find out how many chromosomes she has and clone her first."
Livingston agreed that skiing without legs is as hard as it looks to the able-bodied spectators. The first time she tried it she could barely go 100 yards; the first time Cable tried it she cried.
"I didn't want to do it ever again," Cable said. "But now I love it."
E-MAIL: jhyde@desnews.com
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March 16, 2002
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