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Mosher making strides with 2010 team

Para XC skier qualifies for World Cup events
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Chasing 2010 Tyler Mosher (right) has established himself as one of the top para nordic racers in Canada in his classification. His next goal is to chase the top athletes in the world.

Tyler Mosher has taken his skiing to another level this year, training hard through the summer, slimming down to a weight he hasn’t been since he started high school, and attacking the leaders in his para cross-country category with everything he has.

The hard work has paid off. At recent cross-country events in Lake Louise and Canmore, Mosher has placed first in the 10 km and second in the 5 km to earn a spot with the national para-Nordic team when it heads to Europe in January. He has another World Cup qualifier event at Sovereign Lake this weekend, which will help his standings with the team.

For Mosher, an incomplete paraplegic with limited mobility below the waist, the difference this year has been strength.

“I’m seeing three years of training paying off,” he said. “I’m able to compensate for my disability by becoming a lot stronger and working on my technique so it’s as close to the proper technique for a standing skier as I can do. There are still certain movements that I can’t do, but right now I’ve done everything I can do to compensate in other ways.”

This is Mosher’s second winter with the para-Nordic 2010 team, a development program created to prepare athletes for the Paralympics. As a result the team has been paying for training and travel, and Mosher has had the opportunity to train during the summer.

In August he spent time in New Zealand, where he entered a loppet and won his age category against able-bodied skiers in a 21 km free technique race and placed third overall among classic skiers.

He also spent time training at an indoor, on-snow track in Finland, skiing alongside the top Nordic skiers in the world.

Now that he has qualified for this season’s World Cup competitions, his next goal is to finish with a time that is less than 30 per cent behind first place — a milestone set for Mosher by Cross Country Canada to pre-qualify for the World Cup team in 2008-09.

While he is confident that he can meet that goal, and earn a spot to compete at home in 2010, he is less confident that he will be able to medal in his current classification. In disabled sports, athletes are put into categories based on the nature of their injury with a time adjustment that reflects their personal limitations. Because Mosher benefited from a relatively new type of treatment for spinal cord damage, stemming from a snowboarding injury in 2001, he has only partial paralysis below the waist. As a result he has been grouped in a category of standing skiers that can use prosthetics that may in some cases boost performance.

“I know the top four skiers in my category right now could probably make the Olympics for able-bodied skiers, that’s how good these guys are even with a disability,” said Mosher. “Right now the classification system doesn’t recognize or understand my type of injury. Although walking paraplegics are becoming more common with medical science, right now I don’t have a choice.”

Cross Country Canada is petitioning to have Mosher moved from one classification to another, or to create a new classification that would give him an added three per cent time adjustment. According to Mosher, that would make a huge difference.

“Worrying about it is something that drains all my positive energy and de-motivates me, but I have to remind myself that it’s not something I can control and try not to think about it,” he said. “The system is flawed, everybody knows it — I’m not the only athlete with issues — but I know that Cross Country Canada is doing everything they can to make sure I have a level playing field.

“All I can do is go out and do my best. It’s really the hardest thing I’ve ever done, the most challenging sport I’ve ever been involved in. It pushes your body to its limits. I’m literally coughing up blood at the end of a race.

“It seems crazy to spend six years of my life training for an hour and a half of competition in 2010, but my goal was to compete at home in the Paralympics.”

Mosher credits his cross-country coaches and trainers for helping him get to where he is, as well as his local trainers in Whistler. Balancing his landscaping business with training made for some long days through the summer — up at 5 a.m., train for one or two hours, work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., then train for another two hours before dinner and bed.

“It’s great being healthy and watching yourself get faster, but part of me will be relieved when it’s all over,” he said.

This winter Mosher plans to add skate skiing to classic skiing, which opens up the possibility of competing in biathlon as well as the 20 km classic and sprints in 2010. The addition of the Nordic centre in the Callaghan to the Lost Lake Trails will make it easier to train through the winter, he says, and branch out into a new discipline.

He also plans to keep snowboarding whenever possible, and hopes that it will be included as a demonstration sport in 2010. He helped lead the petition to have snowboarding added as a medal sport, and believes it is only a matter of time before it’s added to the Paralympics.

As a member of the 2010 team he does get some funding to attend competitions and camps, but he is still looking for sponsors to help with gear, ski passes, and other expenses. Still, he’s not complaining — a few years ago he paid all of his expenses out of his own pocket.

“Now I’m getting flights, hotels and meals paid for and that’s all you really have time for,” he said. “We don’t get to do a lot of sightseeing — basically you fly in at night, check into a hotel, ride around in vans to the venues, eat dinner, sleep, get up, get back in the van, do it all again, then head to the airport and go somewhere else. It’s not as glamorous as it seems. If you’re lucky, like we were recently in Canmore, you get to ski somewhere beautiful like across the border into Yoho National Park from Lake Louise. It was awesome, but the only reason we got to do it was because it was a 30 km ski training.”