http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2664412
Back on top of the mountain
Josh Dueck soaring again following horrific accident
Doug Ward, Canwest News Service
Mark Van Manen, Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER - All Josh Dueck wanted to do when he finished high school was
shred. Work in the summer, live dirt-cheap in a van, ski every day in the
winter.
Barbecues, friends, head-banging to Metallica and Pantera. Competing in
moguls on the freestyle ski circuit. A girl in every town. Josh Dueck was a
chill guy.
"I created my identity from being that daredevil risk-taker. People knew me
to be that guy who would jump bigger and not look at the risks," Dueck
recalls. "Yeah, I had warnings. But I didn't heed them."
Growing up in Kimberley in the East Kootenays, Dueck wanted to be a
professional skier, move to Whistler -- and go to the Olympics. And this
month, he is: The Vancouver Paralympics, March 12 to 21.
Dueck, now a paraplegic, has spent five years becoming one of the best
para-alpine sit skiers in the world. He has learned to carve and huck while
strapped into a sit ski -- an 18-kilogram aluminum sled locked into the
binding of a single ski.
And he has learned to tell his inspirational tale about how he overcame
initial despair and went back to being the old Josh: a life-embracing,
charismatic guy you want to be around.
But Dueck, 29, wants to move beyond talking about the ill-timed Superman
front-flip in 2004 that left him paralyzed from the waist down.
He wants to be more than just another heartwarming story about the human
spirit's ability to overcome the worst bad luck.
The winner of the 2009 world sit-ski downhill championship in South Korea
wants to blow people's minds at the 2010 Paralympics with what he can do on
a ski hill.
Dueck's ski dream fell to Earth -- and then came back to life -- at Silver
Star Mountain Resort in the Monashee Mountains near Vernon. Dueck used to be
a competitive freestyle skier. He raced with the B.C. Freestyle Team and
competed on the North American freestyle circuit. But his results weren't
good enough for the Canadian national or Olympic teams.
And he was tired of having no money, getting by on soup and crackers. So
Dueck left competitive skiing at age 22 to become a freestyle ski coach,
eventually landing a job as coach of the Silver Star Freestyle Ski Club in
Vernon. It was a way he could make a living pursuing his passion.
Dueck was in the perfect place -- and on this March day, four years ago, was
getting his young charges ready for the Canadian junior championships.
Someone asked him to do a Superman front-flip in the terrain park, his
signature trick, one he'd stomped countless times. You lay out like
Superman.
But as he skied down the in-run and off the kicker, Dueck knew he had too
much speed. He cleared the 50-foot gap between the end of the jump and the
landing hill. But he overshot the landing, still going up when he was
supposed to be going down.
Dueck was airlifted to Vancouver General Hospital, where he learned that he
had severed his spinal cord and would never walk again.
"When I regained consciousness, it was a new reality." He'd lost use of his
legs, bowels and bladder.
He asked his father to "pull the plug."
But despondency gave way to hope. His physician, Dr. Gavin Smart, whose
children Dueck had coached, told him to focus on his ability rather than his
disability.
"He told me: 'You're going to rock the world in a wheelchair and be back on
the mountain riding a sit ski before you know it'."
Dueck spent the summer after his accident trying to strengthen his body and
deal with guilt.
"I felt guilty about making that jump. I ignored my intuition and was trying
to be a cowboy and show off. I didn't want to look bad in front of the kids
I was coaching."
The guilt helped motivateDueck to get back on the slopes nine months after
his accident.
Although he was lower to the ground, he felt much higher. "Not being able to
feel my legs and being saddled into a 40-pound piece of equipment -- it's
pretty intimidating."
His core used to be his centre of balance on skis. Now that centre was in
his upper body. "If I lift my head too far forward, I'm going to fall over."
But incrementally he began to feel at one with the sit ski, just as he used
to with two skis. "Once you find your balance, you're golden. Ultimately,
the ski wants to do the same thing."
Once he felt comfortable in the contraption, Dueck knew he wanted to race,
get on the national team and compete in the 2010 Paralympics. Being a
competitive para-alpine skier became a full-time, year-round job.
His annual expenses during the first year came to about $30,000, including
$10,000 for the sit ski. He went into debt subsidizing his new career but he
broke even in his second year and turned a slight profit by the third.
"It's still not enough to pay taxes but enough that I'm not starving, which
is really good because I'm living this dream I've had since I was young to
be the best skier that I can be."
Dueck began competing in Canadian and North American disabled alpine
competitions, steadily rising in the rankings. He was named to the
provincial disabled alpine ski team in 2005 and the national development
team in 2006.
Dueck had a breakthrough year in 2009, winning the world downhill
championship and the Canadian championship in giant slalom plus the
International Paralympic Committee's World Cup on the Dave Murray downhill
course at Whistler.
Dueck's first race at the 2010 Paralympics, the downhill, is set for next
Saturday, and will be followed by the super-G, giant slalom, slalom and the
super-combined.
"In order for me to do well, I have to do more than ski well. I have to be
on fire from the inside out. I have to really want it."
And if things don't work out, as they didn't for Canada's able-bodied alpine
skiers during the Olympics, Dueck knows that his Vernon friends will remain
behind him.
"My support base will still be there if I crash," Dueck says.
"My identity is not just as a skier. It's the individual I've become being a
skier. Skiing is a vehicle for me and not everything about me."
C 2010 The National Post Company. All rights reserved. Unauthorized
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