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Sit-skier Eskau digs Otway course

The red, black and gold colours of Germany joined a row of flags billowing in the face of a biting winter breeze chilling the trails at Otway Nordic Centre and Andrea Eskau had a smile on her face.
skier
Andrea Eskau of Germany is one of the most successful Paralympians in the world. – Citizen staff photo

The red, black and gold colours of Germany joined a row of flags billowing in the face of a biting winter breeze chilling the trails at Otway Nordic Centre and Andrea Eskau had a smile on her face.

The 47-year-old sit-skier had just finished her practice session on the biathlon course in preparation for her first race today in the World Para Nordic Skiing Championships and she gave the hilly course a thumbs-up passing grade.

"The courses are really good, especially for a sit-skier - in my opinion they are really fair, there are no dangerous parts," Eskau said. "It's challenging but not dangerous. The downhill parts are not too heavy for the high-handicapped ones."

Eskau sits in a sled using only her arms and poles to propel her. Abundant snowfall and cold weather allowed groomers at Otway to build a hard and deep classic track which Eskau and the rest of the sit-skiers will follow throughout their races.

"The track is better for us because we need a good track, that's very important," said Eskau. "We need a deep track. If it's just on the surface it's not strong enough we get out of it and that's not good.

"I crash sometimes but not that often. If you fall downwards it's hard to get up."

Eskau grew up as a competitive able-bodied road cyclist in Germany until she was 27, when a cycling accident while riding to school resulted in career-ending spinal injuries. Five years after her accident, in 2003, she was back racing again as a hand-cyclist and in 2009 she joined the ranks of the para nordic world, immersing herself in training to become a cross-country skier and biathlete.

"I'm from close to Oberhof and we have a lot of snow and I was unlucky because I couldn't run through the snow with a wheelchair, so this was a nice new experience with the sledge and I loved it," said Eskau.

Eskau is among a rare breed of athletes who have ascended the medal podium in the summer and winter Paralympic Games. In 2016 she went to the summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro and came home with a gold medal in the hand-cycling women's road race.

Eskau went to her first Paralympic competition in 2010 in Vancouver-Whistler and won biathlon silver and bronze.

"That was really nice, I'd only done it for a month," she said. "But that time the level was lower than now."

She upped the ante in Sochi in 2014, winning two gold medals in biathlon, and Pyeongchang in 2018 was even better. She captured six medals - two gold in biathlon, three silver in cross-country and a bronze in the cross-country relay.

The progression of Paralympic sports since the first Games in Lillihammer, Norway, in 1994 has been steady, and the level of competition in the sit-skiing classes has grown exponentially.

"Now there are much more athletes and much more countries competing," Eskau said. "When I started there were a lot of Russians and lot of Ukrainians, but now you have Kazhakstan, Iran, Korea and Mongolia. The last winter Paralympics were amazing because we had so many countries and it was more like the Olympics. Pyeongchang had the most countries ever."

Eskau was a multiple-medalist at the 2017 World Para Nordic Skiing Championship in Finsterau, Germany, an event watched by an internet audience estimated at two million. All the races in Prince George will be webcast live and Eskau's girlfriend in Germany will be among the viewers all over Europe and the rest of the world watching her perform.

"This is impressive - the TV coverage is much more than in the past and there are a lot of people who are interested in us now. It has increased so much the last few years," Eskau said.

She knows the competition over the next week is going to be intense. Eskau ranks third in the world rankings in biathlon and cross-country. Americans Kendall Gretsch and Oksana Masters are 1-2 in biathlon, while Masters tops the sit-skier cross-country rankings ahead of Birgit Skarstein of Norway and Eskau.

"Oksana Masters is the best skier in our field and Kendall Gretsch is the favorite in biathlon," said Eskau. "Sometimes my shooting is pretty good."

The host Caledonia Nordic Ski Club purchased air rifles used by the standing and sitting biathletes to shoot at targets 10-metres away. The club also invested in a sonic target sighting system for visually-impaired biathletes and both systems will become a legacy for northern B.C. to be used at other clubs in the region.

Trained as a psychologist, Eskau is a former director of sports for the impaired at the Federal Institute of Sport Science in Cologne, Germany. Her level of impairment - LW 11.0 - is right in the middle of the five sit-skier levels which range from 10 (most impaired - paralyzed from the breast down, no hip control) to 12 (least impaired - single- or double leg amputees). Skiers in her classification have a leg impairment and fair trunk control, with enough core muscle control to balance themselves around corners.

Eskau has been training hard for her second Para Nordic World Championship and she's prepared for whatever challenges the courses provide. She's coming off a five-medal performance a month ago at the Para World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden.

"In this kind of environment it's so much fun for me, and you get back so much, you don't think about your arms," she said. "The glide is much better now than the last days when it was really good."

In the men's sit-skiing class, in biathlon and cross-country, Daniel Cnossen of the U.S. is the one to beat. He leads the world standings in both disciplines. Aaron Pike of the U.S. is ranked fourth in cross-country and sixth in biathlon.

The four-athlete American team arrived Wednesday. Wax technician Paige Elliott, of Durango, Colo., spoke to Gretsch after her practice run Thursday and Gretsch was impressed with the course.

"She was just beaming," said Elliott.

Biathletes will begin the competition today, with the women's sit-ski 10-kilometre race starting at 10 a.m., followed by the men's race at 10:55 a.m. The women's standing race starts at 12:30 p.m., with the men getting underway at 12:50, followed by the visually-impaired races at 2:20 and 2:40.

Cross-country takes the stage on Sunday, starting at 10 a.m., and Monday will be dedicated to the cross-country sprints, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday is a day of training and racing resumes Wednesday with the biathlon sprints.