What's it like to be a Para alpine ski guide?
With the Paralympic Winter Games starting 4 March, Olympics.com finds out what it's like to be a ski guide for the visually-impaired athletes hurtling down the Alpine ski slopes come race day at Beijing 2022.
Paralympic Games
One of the cool things about visually impaired skiing says Great Britain’s most successful Paralympic winter sport athlete Menna Fitzpatrick, is that “instead of using your eyesight you can feel how the skis are moving, using different senses that people wouldn’t necessarily use”.
The four-time Paralympic medallist was detailing what it’s like for her to ski down a slope at 60mph with limited vision in a video for GB Snowsport. The 23-year-old who was born with congenital retinal folds, which means she has no vision in the left eye and less than five per cent vision in the right, describes her sport as akin to “skiing in a complete whiteout”.
Using her senses and experience, honed since Fitzpatrick was encouraged by her parents to try skiing aged five on a family skiing holiday with two older sisters, is one way the four-time Paralympic medallist manages to make the most of her ability.
Tools of the trade
Another tool that all visually-impaired skiers use in competition is a Para alpine guide, who ski just metres in front wearing an orange bib to give a small indication of where the course flows next. Two-way Bluetooth headsets in their helmets allow constant communication between the pair, particularly important as the athletes must keep a certain distance between them depending on the discipline. For example, in the slalom, skier and guide are not allowed to be more than one gate apart.
Katie Guest, Fitzpatrick’s guide up until Beijing 2022 before a bout of COVID scuppered her chances of travelling to her debut Paralympic Winter Games, explained to Press and Journal in December what the two talk about during the race: “I can say what’s coming up, so if there’s a change in terrain, a combination change or a bit of icy conditions, I can relay that to Menna before she’s gone over them.”
Due to the importance of communication, spectators and officials must stay quiet slopeside so the athletes can hear each other. Crossing the line however is a different story. The burst of noise as cheers and claps ring out is quite the contrast, and a thrilling one at that says Fitzpatrick who has plenty of experience in this area, particularly pre-COVID times.
“I can definitely always hear my family because they’re screaming so loud, I know it’s them,” says Fitzpatrick who won all her Paralympic medals at PyeongChang 2018, her debut Games, picking up one gold, two silvers, and one bronze. Her then-partner was Jennifer Kehoe, who retired from elite sport to concentrate on her Army career, which is when Guest stepped in.
Fork in the road
Guest also learned to ski aged five, on a golf course in her native Scotland and alongside sister Charlie, herself a two-time Olympian who competed in Alpine skiing at Beijing 2022 coming 21st in the slalom discipline.
Katie ultimately decided that being on the Alpine ski tour wasn’t for her having spent two seasons ski racing in the United States but ultimately coming home disillusioned with the intensity of the sport, how much dedication was required for success and just wanting to try something new. She headed to university to study geography and civil engineering and it was while she was there that she was approached by GB Snowsport to be part of a pool of Para alpine ski guides.
A training camp in Germany particularly stuck with Katie.
“It was skiing, which I love, but in a completely different view,” Katie told Olympics.com in November. “It's no longer for yourself, you're doing it as a team, and I think, especially growing up, I was on the hockey teams at school, on netball teams at school, and I loved it. I think if something goes wrong, it's not just your fault, or something goes well you can celebrate with other people. It's not just you by yourself.”
Nevertheless, Guest turned down the opportunity in 2015 to continue racing with Millie Knight ahead of the Republic of Korea Games in order to focus on her university studies. But in August 2021, GB Snowsport called again, ‘did she want to join the pool of Para guides leading up to Beijing 2022?’
Guest didn’t want to miss out this time around, especially as COVID protocols meant that the outdoor enthusiast had to spend a lot of time in a flat in Scotland studying.
Originally Katie joined as a pool guide to take part when needed but it soon became clear that her relationship with Fitzpatrick was one that was proving particularly fruitful.
Success breeds success
Having teamed up with Fitzpatrick, the results came thick and fast after the GB training camp came to a close at the end of November 2021. By 11 December, the pair competed in their first World Cup race and by the last race of the 2021 season, the duo were on the World Cup podium.
At January's world championships the twosome topped the slalom podium and were second behind teammates Millie Knight and her guide, Brett Wild, in the super-combined event.
“I think after talking to athletes, it's very much based on your rapport with them and how you get on sort of building up that level of trust…,” Guest told Olympics.com. “I've mainly worked with one athlete and that's been working really well, just getting to know them…
"When you look at it from the outside, it seems quite simple, but I think getting to know when they're in a low mood, trying to pick them up, the speed that they ski at and what they find difficult. So I think it's been it's been really good just training with the one athlete at the minute and guiding them.”
Fitzpatrick herself was effusive in praise of her guide, posting on Instagram after the World Para Snowsports Championships in Lillehammer in Norway on 22 January: “Today was an epic day! Katie and I won our first world championship title. Over the last few months and weeks has been a journey like no other.
"It’s had its ups and downs and some scary moments too but that’s one of the reasons I love this sport. Today it all came together and we put down two great runs. So proud and massive thank you to @katieguest95 for being there on the down days to lift me up and for being there for these moments as well and not forgetting the actually guiding part as well!”
The pool system used by GB Snowsport means that Fitzpatrick is still able to compete at Beijing 2022, and will now ski with Gary Smith as her guide, with Guest cheering them on from home.
Team bonding like no other
Clearly this relationship between Para skier and guide is an all-important parameter in terms of safety and success on the slopes when trying to ski as fast as possible round a number of gates but it’s more than a closeness, more than knowing someone extremely well, there has to be a proper connection.
When Olympics.com interviewed the Guest siblings together on a video call, and asked if they had ever tried Katie leading a blindfolded Charlie down the slope, the answer was no, but gave both pause for thought.
“I actually don't know how the athletes do it,” said Charlie. “The amount of trust that you must have to have in your guide is incredible and hats off to Katie for taking that challenge on and building a rapport with athletes. I genuinely don't know what the communication tools are that I would use to be able to tell people what's going through my mind as I'm skiing down, let alone having to use somebody else as one of your senses, I think would be incredibly difficult.”
“I think I would definitely turn the microphone off or my speaker off, so I didn't hear what was coming from behind,” laughed Katie.
“The trust required between skier and guide is unlike any other,” agrees Jessica Gallagher who has record-breaking experience in both summer and winter Para sports, becoming the first Australian athlete to win medals at both versions of the Games – a bronze in both the women’s giant slalom at Sochi 2014 and women’s 1km time trial in Para cycling at Rio 2016. “Decisions and the communication that comes through those headsets happens within a tenth of a second.
“In the various sports that I’ve competed in, without a doubt ski racing is the hardest because once you add speed and fear to a pursuit, it changes the game because there are real consequences if mistakes are made.”