Our research began with Millie Knight, 2014 Paralympic Skier for Great Britain. Her visual impairment requires her to train and compete with a guide, an experience she enjoys because of the social dynamic. While she enjoys skiing with her guide, we discovered that Millie resorts to training off the slopes by rowing--a sport that exercises the entire body using a rhythmic stroke that replaces the need for a guide. Could we create a sport that maintains that social nature and allows visually impaired athletes to compete without a separate guide?

 

In parallel, we learned that the International Paralympic Committee is currently evaluating adding sliding sports for the 2018 games: including bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton. The challenge they face is to expand the current set of offerings to include options that are cross-disability and athletically challenging but also sufficiently safe. Rowing struck us as the ideal traditional sport that could be adapted to meet those criteria while creating an additional team sport. We believe that the popularity of traditional rowing will bring audiences to our new sport and would also create a year-round training alternative.

 

We present the future spot of Ice Rowing, a sport that harnesses the biomechanics of rowing and the combined strength of an athlete's legs, back and arms to create a powerful stroke. Paralympians of varying disability categories would form teams of complementary abilities to compete against each other as equals. What if Paralympians were known for their abilities rather than their disabilities?