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Update #4: World Off-Road Handcycling Championships

Posted on September 5, 2009

I came to Crested Butte for the Championships to learn from other off-road handcyclists, and there's quite a group to learn from. It's the biggest field that they've ever had in the four (I'm pretty sure of that) years of the event. Fifteen competitors will toe the line (proverbially speaking obviously), in a little under two hours. The field will include a couple of the top road handcyclists in the country, a local, technical/rough terrain expert, a couple of the leading adventurists, a couple of women, one of whom is on the US Adaptive Nordic Team and reported to be really fast, some super fast guys who have done the event every year, and possibly the defending champion. As you can see, everyone is something else first--the mark of a new and exciting sport. It's gaining interest with the gaining numbers, but to me the most important part is that it's gaining the perspective of so many different experiences. I'd imagine when the gun goes off that there will be a variety of different approaches, and that's exactly what I want to see. I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't nervous, I am. The juices are flowing. It's a competition and I really have absolutely no idea how I'll do. I arrived with grand hopes. Those have been tempered, but sometimes competing without expectations--competing blind--is the most fun because my only tactic is to give it everything I have and see if it was good enough. I'm off for the approximately two-mile uphill time trial that will gain about 1000 feet of vertical. Thanks for your support.

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Sponsor Chris's Revolutions as he climbs up Kilimanjaro. One Revolution per dollar. You will get updates prior to the climb and periodic updates from the mountain during the attempt.

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50 Revolutions. Along with the updates, you will be given a link and password to the press site where you will be able to track Chris’s progress in real time on a Google satellite map.

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100 Revolutions. Along with the updates and tracking, you and a guest will join Chris at one of the post-Kilimanjaro celebrations in New York or Park City. If you can't make it, donate the tickets to a good cause.

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Sponsor Chris's final revolution at the top of Kilimanjaro and get credit in the film as a major sponsor!

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Chris broke his back in a skiing accident on December 20, 1988 while a member of the Middlebury College ski team. He was 20 years old. After two months in the hospital he returned to Middlebury for the spring semester. Three days short of the accident's first anniversary, he started to ski in a monoski--okay, ski might be a bit of a stretch, he started to fall down in a monoski. Within two years, he was named to the US Disabled Ski Team.

During his career he won more Paralmypic skiing medals (12) than any man in history. In 1994, he swept all four (slalom, giant slalom, super G, and downhill) events at the Paralympics in Lillehammer, Norway. In all, Chris competed in four winter Paralympics (Albertville, Lillehammer, Nagano, and Salt Lake City), yet he was also part of a select handful who competed in both the winter and summer Games, where he competed in three Paralympics (Atlanta, Sydney, and Athens). He won a silver medal in the 200 meters wheelchair racing in Sydney, and also won the 200 meters at the World Championships in Birmingham, England, joining a very elite group to win World Championships in a summer and winter sport.

In addition to his competition, Chris co-founded the Sarah Will and Chris Waddell Instructional Monoski Camp, which provided the starting ground for many future members of the US Disabled Ski Team, and others who just wanted to enjoy the sport more. He graduated from Middlebury with a degree in International Politics and Economics, acted in the soap opera "Loving," and was one of People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 1998. He moved to Park City prior to the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and Paralymics, though he grew up in Massachusetts.