CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, March 8 – Italian snowboarder Emanuel Perathoner, whose career as an able-bodied athlete ended after a serious training accident in 2021, reinvented himself as a Paralympic competitor – winning his first gold medal in snowboard cross on home snow on Sunday.
The crash marked a dramatic turning point for the 39-year-old athlete from South Tyrol, a northern Italian region near the Austrian border. It prevented Perathoner, who had competed in the Winter Olympics in 2014 and 2018, from attending the 2022 Games in Beijing and prompted him to race as an athlete with a physical disability.
Tom Weller via Getty Images
The Milano Cortina Winter Games were a great opportunity for him – and he delivered. “My motto is: never give up, with or without a disability. And I can say that now that I have moved from an Olympic career to a Paralympic career. Sport can do everything,” he told journalists after the race in sun-drenched Cortina.
“The track was perfect today. It’s great to win here in front of my crowd and my family.”
Perathoner suffered a broken tibial plateau and underwent a replacement of his left knee, which is now locked at 35-40 degrees, preventing further bending.
His sporting future seemed over. Instead, after a year of rehabilitation, he returned to snowboarding and began competing in Para events.
“In snowboard cross, with a knee that only bends 40 degrees, everything is more difficult,” says his physiotherapist Paolo Di Pietro.
“There are compensations with the back and hip, both in sports and in everyday life. He trains specifically for these adjustments.”
Perathoner said the transition from the Olympic to the Paralympic world was less difficult than expected.
“The most important thing was finding the will to compete again,” he said.
The Milano Cortina Paralympic Games last until March 15.
(Reporting by Giancarlo Navach, editing by Giselda Vagnoni)
