Alicia Brelsford Dana competed in the IPC World Cup adaptive nordic ski races in Telemark, Wis., and Minneapolis, Minn.
Springfield — Local resident Alicia Brelsford Dana competed in the IPC World Cup adaptive nordic ski races in Telemark, Wis., and Minneapolis, Minn., last week as one of 17 athletes chosen for this event to represent the U.S. Nordic Adaptive Team.
The skiers ranged from beginners to experienced, elite racers, with a range of disabilities, from single and double amputees, to visually impaired, and those with spinal cord injuries, like Brelsford Dana.
The first time an IPC nordic event has been held in the U.S., it was a unique opportunity for all the adaptive skiers to get international race experience on home soil.
After the qualifying races in Rumford, Maine in January, Brelsford Dana scrambled to get a new sitski made for her, as she had been using an old, borrowed one that didn’t fit her properly.
“This is my first season of racing beyond a handful of local events, and I'm still trying to ‘dial in’ my equipment, which has been my major limiting factor, besides not a lot of experience in the sport,” Brelsford Dana said. “A huge part of this sport is getting oneself appropriately fitted to the sitski, given one's particular disability and body. This is an issue for just about every sitskier I’ve met - we come in all different shapes, sizes and levels of ability, and so virtually all sitskis are custom built. And it takes time racing to know what you need, so getting started can be a daunting process. I learned a lot out there, observing what the foreign athletes were using, how they were positioned.”
Brelsford Dana placed well in all four events, which included one 12 kilometer race (seventh place), two 5 kilometer races (seventh and ninth place), and a sprint race (ninth place). She was consistently the first U.S. woman, and in the sprint and the final 5-kilometer race she received world cup points, meaning that her time was within 130 percent of the winner’s placement. If the selection criteria remain the same as in previous years, she is in a good position to qualify for the Paralympics in Russia in 2014.
“I never stopped feeling the strength and pride of my Putney ski heritage,” she said.
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