Chris Waddell: One Revolution
OMTimes: How long did it take you to recover from your injuries and start being active again?
Chris Waddell: I was in the hospital for two months, returned to college for the spring semester (I only missed one class. We had one class over a January Term at Middlebury). I did my first road race about eight months after the accident, started skiing in a mono ski 362 days after the accident, started ski racing soon after that, raced in the National Championships that winter and made the US team the following winter.
OMTimes: How did you get to the Paralympics?
Chris Waddell: I knew when I started mono skiing that not only did I want to be the best in the world, but I wanted to do things that no one had ever imagined. The year before my accident I had gained a hero. At a ski race while I was still walking I saw a woman named Diana Golden. She’d lost her leg as a child and became the best one-legged skier in the world. She was the best athlete I’d ever seen. In a field of national team members and top regional athletes she stood out as an example because she knew she would fall, she knew she would fail, but she also knew that she wouldn’t be denied. I wanted to be like her that day. After my accident, I wanted to do for mono skiing what she had done of three-tracking, skiing on one leg with two outriggers, hence three tracks. I succeeded at regional races and the National Championships putting me in a position to compete in my first Paralympics in Albertville in 1992. I won two silver medals in Albertville and then was the best in the world by 1994 in Lillehammer, winning all four races.
