Sam Tait’s excited email on February 6th reads as follows . . . . . . .
I firstly want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I hope you are having a great start to the year and enjoying the Olympics.
I have some very exciting news!! I have officially been selected to compete and represent Australia at the 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing! We did it! 😊
I want to give a massive thank you to everyone who has donated to me, you have no idea how grateful I am for your support and how much it has helped get me to where I am today. Your support has helped me travel overseas for competitions and training, helped me keep my equipment to a professional level, and made it possible to focus on skiing. I thank you again.
Just a little update on the past month and leading into the games.
At the start of January I had World Championships up in Lillehammer, Norway. I was super excited to get there and compete, I was taking it as a mini games to see where I was within my competition. My first day of Super G training on my last run I had a huge crash and injured my ribs and collarbone which put me out for one day. Two days after I had my 1st Downhill training, I skied very safely as I was still very sore from the day Super G crash. The 2nd Downhill training my body was feeling ready to ski faster and have a better training run, during this run I had another crash and hit the nets and hyperextended my back and ribs over the back of my backrest. This injury put me out for the next 4 weeks, at the time my coach, physio and I thought I would only be out for a few days and miss the speed races and come back in for Giant Slalom. Although I bruised my ribs badly and 1 week grew to 4 weeks of no skiing or training.
At the end of January I travelled to Are in Sweden where we had a test event for the World Championships next year in January 2023. As I was coming back from my injury my confidence was a little low as I was back on snow and my back was super tender and it hurt to arc my ski. My first race was a Super G, which is a speed event and I love speed! After inspecting the course my confidence wasn’t there at all, but after a chat with my coach Ryan, which I didn’t think I needed, we made a decision to race and get my confidence back. Our plan was to ski 50% and for anyone who knows me when I’m skiing it just feels better going faster and this hill you need 100% confidence. I finished the Super G race and came 6th, a career best.
I am now back in Zell Am See, Austria, where we are spending the next 3 weeks. Our schedule is 3 days on 1 day off of double sessions. I am really enjoying training, everything is going in the right direction and I feel really
confident and ready to compete in Beijing, I just have to get there covid free and then it is go time!
Thank you again for your support!
Sam 😊
During the Paralympics Matthews Folbigg will be posting detail of Sam’s events and his amazing journey ‘to’ and ‘at’ the Paralympics.
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