Sit ski daredevil Jeroen Kampschreur makes the switch from "gold medal or DNF" mentality - with surprising results

It was a moment frozen in time. A 10-year-old boy in a sit ski hurtling down an alpine slope in a straight line, his parents watching this unplanned descent with panic.

Jeroen Kampschreur had been skiing with his family while on holidays for three years by then, but he had never gone down a mountain alone. That is until, on one such trip, his mother unwittingly released the ropes that were used to steer the bi-ski frame.

“She accidentally let me go and I didn't hear any ‘left’ or ‘right’ again, so I just went straight down because I loved it," Kampschreur said. "My dad saw it happening. He was on the phone and he just hung up and he went straight down to me and I was just going whoosh, straight to the bottom of the slope. And then he said, ‘Right, right, right, right, right!’ and I just went so far right that I went up the hill again. That's how he stopped me.

"But that's the moment where we found out that I could actually do it on my own and I wasn't scared at all. So I think the moment my mom accidentally released the ropes on vacation, that's the moment where the realisation for both my mom and dad and for me came, ‘Wow, this is what I'm going to do and this is what I'm good at and this is what I love’. That's the first time we experienced something like that.”

The love of speed has not left Kampschreur since. Known for his audacious skiing, the Dutch athlete has sliced through the most challenging runs, often hovering on the edge between victory and a DNF. This “all or nothing” approach is something that has come to define Kampschreur in the world of Para alpine skiing – a persona he carried off with aplomb.

All that changed after the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Games where Kampschreur's signature on-edge skiing cost him four medals in what was expected to be a glittering showing for the nine-time world champion. After a period of doubt and reflection, Kampschreur returned with a new mindset that has already propelled him to an overall Crystal Globe last season – the only thing that was still missing in his trophy case filled with Paralympic and world medals and Crystal Globes in every skiing discipline.

"I used to be a very aggressive skier who took only big risks. There was no reward except a gold medal or a DNF. I actually became a little more responsible and I've been getting older. My skiing, it's different than it used to be,” Kampschreur said. "I was literally trying too hard and I think we've found ways in my head to be a little more tactical about it.”

Olympics.com caught up with the Paralympic champion to learn more about his mindset transformation, skiing at Beijing 2022 two days after his career’s worst crash, the line-up of sit ski daredevils he will go up against at Milano Cortina 2026 and the first things skiers say when they cross the finish line.

• Milano Cortina 2026 mascots Tina and Milo embark on winter sports showcase ahead of Olympic Winter Games
• Milano Cortina 2026: Understanding Italy's history with winter sport

Jeroen Kampschreur's “all or nothing” ski formula

Kampschreur’s serendipitous downhill descent as a child was the first time that he skied on his own that week. A year later he went to Olympic Talent Day where he met one of his current coaches and set off on the road to becoming a champion Para alpine skier.

“My strength was good, but in certain sports, you feel that they’re harder to do compared to the other kids. But with skiing, I felt equal or even better than all the other people on the slopes. That was a really good feeling for me," Kampschreur said about why skiing was a good fit for him. "And then also just the speed. I would love to go in rollercoasters also and in amusement parks and all that. I just like the adrenaline and going fast became a hobby and now my job."

His favourite ski tracks were those that had the least amount of flat sections. The steepest, trickiest turns was where he thrived. The faster, the better. An expert in keeping his emotions in check in the most nerve-wracking moments, even the rockiest rollercoaster ride was not enough to break Kampschreur's cool.

“I don't scream. No, no, I don't let go of my emotions," he said with a laugh. "That's good because (on skis) we go faster than rollercoasters and otherwise I would scream all the way down to the finish line and I don't think that would be very good. My sports psychologist would lose his mind.”

Kampschreur's daring skiing served him well over the nine years since he arrived on the World Cup circuit. The 25-year-old has won 14 world championship medals, including a clean golden sweep in all five races at the 2019 edition. He also claimed World Cup medals and Crystal Globes in every discipline, and became a super combined champion on his Paralympic debut at PyeongChang 2018.

The Beijing 2022 turnaround: "I've learned a lot from it"

Kampschreur's ski approach did not always go in his favour. There were multiple DNFs sprinkled in between his podium finishes, but the realisation that this "all or nothing" mindset might also have a flaw did not come until Beijing 2022. The Games, expected to be a triumph for the storied skier, turned sour as Kampschreur left the People's Republic of China with one silver medal, in a race where he was the defending champion.

“I didn't handle it how I wanted to handle it. I think I let the adrenaline do the work for me sometimes in the race where I went a little faster than the plan was," Kampschreur said. "Before the race, I always have a plan. I speak to my coaches about what we're going to do, where we're going to do it, where to take the risks, where to back off. But I think it kind of switched off for me. I just wanted to go a little too fast and prove to everyone that I was the fastest.”

Kampschreur was visibly disappointed when he came to the finish line at the Yanqing National Alpine Ski Centre just short of the medals he so craved. These were striking images, but nothing like the images of a few days earlier.

Two days before the start of competition Kampschreur had what he called the worst crash of his career. The skier took the wrong line during training and flew into the nets. The crash broke the frame of his sit ski and looking at his arm, Kampschreur thought he had broken it. Fortunately, it turned out to be a large lump rather than a fracture.

“It's bad. I went over a 100 kilometres per hour and I went straight into the net, luckily with my back," he said. "That made a big difference."

The extensive strength training the Dutch Para alpine team is known for came through and Kampschreur was able to regain his form enough to ski under heavy painkillers. He also managed to fix his ski frame in time.

Going down the same slope the following day, the two-time Paralympian was relieved when he set the fastest time in downhill training. While a fifth place in the actual race left him “not too satisfied”, it rekindled his hope for the next events.

But the results Kampschreur hoped for never came. Small mistakes, yet so costly in his sport, saw his medal dreams shatter one by one. The skier was fifth in both speed events and did not finish his technical races. While the two DNFs were flukes, on reflection, Kampschreur said these too could have been avoided.

"I hit the bump at the exact wrong moment and my ski lost the ground at the exact moment where there's an ice patch. You can't do anything about it. Well, that's what I said to myself, but in the end, I might have just gone a little bit too fast, which is why this happened," Kampschreur said of one of his DNFs. "I wanted the gold so much and I crashed a lot of times where it was not so necessary."

There was one race where Kampschreur did take a medal. It was a relief, but one mixed with regret as it meant he did not manage to defend his gold from four years ago.

"It was the first time where I actually was convinced that this was not the way," Kampschreur said of his Beijing 2022 experience.

“In the moment, right there, it was very disappointing, and I found it hard to speak to people about it. I took too much risk before the races started because of the big crash. And while the races were run, I took a lot of risk and that's resulted in crashing. But I've learned a lot from it,” he continued. "It made me a better skier in the end."

Here's to the fearless ones: The sit skiers pushing the sport's boundaries

Kampschreur is not the only sit skier racing on the edge of his limits. PyeongChang 2018 downhill champion Andrew Kurka is also known for his "no fear" mentality, sometimes displaying the kind of audacity on the slopes that even takes Kampschreur aback.

“Kurka is very much all or nothing. I'm all or nothing, yes, but he goes even over boundaries that I don't go. I ski very risky, but he skis in a way that sometimes even scares me, and it can be really fast or it can end up in a crash or DNF," Kampschreur said. "But I have a lot of respect for Kurka because he shows the sit ski world what's possible. When I fly 20m, he flies 30m. It's always a pleasure to watch and it's always good for the outside world to see how Kurka goes down that hill."

The USA skier broke his arm and injured his shoulder at Beijing 2022, which kept him off the podium and added to his already long list of injuries that includes breaking his back three times. He recorded his first World Cup victory since the 2022 crash in the downhill on Cortina d’Ampezzo’s Paralympic slope in January 2024.

Cortina local Rene de Silvestro is another sit skier who takes the "all or nothing" approach. The Italian reached his first World Cup podium in February 2019 and has since gained momentum at rapid speed, winning World Cups, world championship and Paralympic medals. In a sign of things to come, de Silvestro beat Kampschreur to gold by 1.98 seconds in a World Cup Super-G race in January on the Paralympic piste.

“His potential is huge,” Kampschreur said of the skier who hails from San Candido, a town within a 45-minute drive to Cortina d’Ampezzo.

When it comes to sit ski rivalries, however, none is as close as that of Kampschreur and five-time Paralympic champion Jesper Pedersen of Norway. Pedersen was already close to Kampschreur when the Dutch skier won his first world championship medals in 2017. By next season Pedersen started to beat him and it has been a head-to-head battle ever since.

“Year after year we've been so close to each other. We have been in the top two all the time just because we pushed each other to the limits all the time. We've made each other so fast that we just made a gap with the two of us to the rest of the field because we just couldn't bear to lose to the other one," Kampschreur said. "We actually can look at each other and be like, ‘OK, I think we kind of did this together’. We were competing against each other, but we made each other better.”

This sense of mutual respect is on clear display at the finish line. At the World Cups sit skiers often stay in the finish area, at a safe distance, as they wait for the next athletes to come down. They are thus the first to offer congratulations, throw out a question or a snappy remark.

“‘Damn, it was a bumpy ride!’," Kampschreur said of what the sit skiers usually shout first when they cross the finish line. "That's most of the time because we're always the last of the field to come down. Seventy athletes have been over this course already and then we come with our motocross springs over the hill with one ski."

Jeroen Kampschreur's new mentality for Milano Cortina 2026

While Kampschreur and Pedersen have gone back-to-back in competitions, they are also very different skiers. A beacon of consistency, Pedersen has won five overall Crystal Globes in a row. Kampschreur finally broke that streak in the 2023-24 season when he claimed his career's first.

The Dutch skier came into the season with minimal expectations. He underwent shoulder surgery in May 2023 after dislocating it twice a few months apart. Six months of recovery followed and when the season started, Kampschreur surprised himself by winning the overall Crystal Globe. The skier credited this unexpected outcome to the mental shift he underwent in the two years since Beijing 2022.

“You know me as a very aggressive skier who goes all in, all the time. I think that's changed over the past two years," Kampschreur said.

“I went into last season very open minded and I said, ‘I just want to get a good skiing feeling and hopefully at the end of the season I can be back at my old pace’, which is why I was not so focused on the results but more on my skiing. And this resulted in good results and it's really weird for me when I came to the finish line at the first slalom race I did after no training basically and I won the race. I was very, very surprised and super shocked and really happy. That's when it kicked in that, wow, maybe don't be so much result-minded, but more focused on your technique and your skiing and what you want to achieve in that run."

The overall Crystal Globe now stands next to his bed as Kampschreur prepares to start his 10th World Cup season in a new role as the defending champion.

After almost a decade since winning his first international medals, the Paralympic champion says he is still motivated to continue – and now that he has discovered a new approach to skiing, perhaps even more so.

"That thrill is still there. I can still get faster," Kampschreur said. "We were in Chile a couple of weeks ago and the start was so steep. It wasn't even a normal tourist slope. They especially prepared it for us. And I was above the slope and I felt a little shivering like, ‘OK, it's a bit scary, actually’. And then going down that full speed on that 2.18m-long downhill ski… nothing can beat that.”