
Fans are excited to see a new, extreme-type sport make its way up to the Paralympic level, and athletes such as USA’s Evan Strong and Amy Purdy, along with New Zealand’s Carl Murphy and the Netherlands’ Biban Mentel are slowly becoming household names.
And, most importantly, after years of petitioning, snowboarders are finally ready to show the world why the deserve to be on the international stage in Paralympic sport.
“It was a movement from a lot of people in a lot of nations, and we’re very proud to have advanced the sport to the Paralympic platform,” Strong said.
“Snowboarding is something new, something fresh that will definitely excited fans at the Paralympic level.
“It’s been great to compete in international competitions. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s going to be like at Sochi 2014.”
Men’s competition
Following Strong’s first-place finish at the test event, he will easily go into Sochi 2014 as the one to beat on the men’s side.
“It felt really good to be here in the biggest most high-profile race for adaptive snowboarding so far,” Strong said after the test event. “So it felt really good to go home with a victory. It's a really good way to go into Sochi for next year.”
Strong has been around action sports his entire life, growing up on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he was formerly a kid skateboarding wiz.
He said most of his training dips into other sports, as when he’s not on the snow he is skateboarding or mountain biking.
At Sochi 2014, the 25-year-old will have plenty of competition from several athletes he knows well who competed with him in adaptive snowboard cross and X-Games events for the last six seasons.
Murphy, along with Canada’s Tyler Mosher and USA’s Mike Shea, will be Strong’s toughest opponents in his quest to claim gold in the men’s lower-limb category, the only classification being offered in snowboard’s Paralympic Games debut.
All of them believe snowboarding has the chance to skyrocket in Paralympic popularity, as the sport did when it debuted at the Olympics.
“I think the same thing will happen with para-snowboard that happened on the Olympic side with snowboard,” Strong said. Read More: