The International Paralympic Committee has provisionally approved the inclusion of bobsleigh to the Beijing 2022 Paralympic games. The governing board made the decision in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Monday. Park City residents Dave Nicholls is the chairman and founder of the U.S. Adaptive Bobsled and Skeleton Association. He’s been working to get the sport in the Paralympics for more than 10 years. He attributes the success largely to the vision of the founder of the National Ability Center, Mechee White who was instrumental in helping Nicholls obtain bobsleds for his organization from the Virgin Islands after the 2002 Olympics.
“It’s been a long time coming but it is just a joyous occasion," Nicholls said. "Mixed emotions as well.”
The mixed emotions are a result of skeleton not being included in the decision.
“You know our vision was for both sports and this is a vision that became larger when Ivo Ferriani - the current president of the IBSFIBT - saw myself and a few other disabled athletes," Nicholls said. "We were given the opportunity to forerun a World Cup – an able-bodied World Cup - and he promised me that he was going to do whatever he could to help our vision and help it become a Paralympic sport.”
Nichols says that bobsleigh and skeleton athletes are a tight-knit community.
“We’re truly one family and - it’s kind of like half of our family was left off the boat at the pier," Nicholls said. "So we have to just work a lot harder to include all of the skeleton athletes to assist them and make this happen for them as well.”
Criteria must be met before a sport can be considered for the Paralympics and Nicholls said those weren’t met for skeleton.
In order to compete in the Games, the sport had to have hosted at least six World Cup races including a World Championship with a minimum of 12 nations participating. Some of those events have taken place right here in Park City.
“Last year we had the very first international World Cup for the sport right here in Park City," Nicholls said. "At the UOP where the sport really originated.”
Both seasoned and new athletes have participated in qualifying events all the way up into the elite level that included the World Cup and the International World Cup.
“It was really exciting to see both skeleton and bobsled participating," Nicholls said. "So again, we have to do what we need to do to work together in a global way to continue to recruit.”
The current team for U.S.A. include some gold medal winners like Eric Eierdam.
“The U.S. will do well," Nicholls said. "We have a lot of athletes - so many more now with this announcement – it’s incredible. The legitimacy, the credibility, the additional option for more sponsors and what not, to help all of our athletes is really just incredible. There’s just so much attention right now so we’re just gonna suck it up.”
With six years until Beijing – Nicholls said they have plenty of time to recruit.
“Our mission is to help recruit and develop new athletes," Nicholls said. "And provide whatever financial opportunities we can through scholarships, transportation, what have you, to help develop the sport and push those folks toward their goals and Olympic dreams.”
The exhilaration on disabled athlete’s faces when they first run the course he said is amazing.
“If you lost a leg or you lost the ability to walk or whatever, when you’re in that sled focusing and concentrating at 80 miles an hour, 85 miles an hour, hitting four or five G’s, - you don’t feel disabled," Nicholls said. "All of the international federations shared in our vision to give adaptive athletes the same opportunity that we’ve had to experience the thrill of the sliding sports.”
Nicholls was the first athlete to pioneer the sport in Europe and said people couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
“The crowds of people there at the track," Nicholls said. "They were doing passenger rides and I roll up there to get into the sled – it was my own sled that was provided to me to run the track – and you could cut the air with a knife. I mean – everybody was just, ‘Oh my god, a guy in a wheelchair is getting into it.’ So we’ve changed mindsets and that’s what a lot of this is about.”
And there are still places in the world, such as Romania, he notes – where it’s illegal to hire a person with disabilities. He credits sports with reminding society that adaptive athletes are capable of far more than is currently believed by many.
Para-athletes run the same track and curves as able-bodied athletes sharing in the universal dream of going home with the gold.