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Phil Chew

An interview with the paralympics coach on the evolution of alpine skiing and the Paralympics

Phil Chew is an icon in the world of alpine skiing. He began skiing seriously in 1977 at age 25 after losing his leg to an aggressive form of cancer, and even at age 38 he was ranked second in the world. He is a three-time Paralympian, five-time Canadian Champion, a U.S. Champion in downhill skiing, and a winner of the combined at the European championship level.

Today he is the coach of the B.C. Disabled Ski Team and is working both on the front lines and behind the scenes to make the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games successful for B.C. athletes and Whistler, which he calls home and where he is raising his family.

Today, front and centre for Chew is getting sponsorship for the team to make sure athletes get to the Nor Am races that are vital to their development.

But three years from now Whistler will be in the midst of hosting the Paralympic Games so Pique Newsmagazine’s Clare Ogilvie sat down with Chew in his Creekside home to learn more about the athlete, and his hopes for the Games.

Pique: How did you first get involved with skiing?

Chew: In 1977 I was diagnosed with cancer and lost my leg. I did a year of chemotherapy — and it’s interesting because while I was doing that chemo I met Terry Fox and I got to know him in the cancer clinic. There must be something in the water out west here when you think of what Terry accomplished, then there’s Rick Hansen, Steve Fonyo and even me. I learned to ski right after I finished my chemotherapy through the B.C. Disabled Ski Team.

I didn’t know how to ski, but I was athletic.

The thing is there was an 80 per cent fatality rate with the type of bone cancer that I had so I wasn’t very optimistic about my future. So everything became about skiing to me, because it was exciting and it was one thing that made me feel equal. I needed something to be equal. I wasn’t playing soccer anymore or jogging like I used to so this was a sport that I could take on to (help) make things equal.

Pique: When was your first race?

Chew: Someone told me that Winter Park (Colorado) was the place to go. That was the hub for disabled skiing in the U.S. So a buddy and I jumped in a station wagon and went down to the U.S. I found out that the American National Championships were to be held there in about a month… and I decided I wanted to race. I had cancer. I didn’t know if I was going to be on this planet very long so I was saying, ‘hey I have got to do as much as I can.’ So I got my skis and headed down to Winter Park and went in my first ski race. I ended up second (in my group) and that kind of got me hooked.

Pique: What happened then?

Chew: Well that winter I was a counsellor for new cancer patients and a nurse at the cancer clinic told me about this girl who had lost her leg to the same type of cancer as I did, Linda Chyzyk. I went to see her in the clinic and I told her that I was skiing and I was all excited and it turned out she had skied before. Then, at a dance I saw this other guy with one leg and I started to talk to him and he told me he had been skiing for 12 years on one leg so I got his number too. We all met at the Sylvia Hotel (in Vancouver) and we started talking about skiing and we ended up calling ourselves the Hang Five Amputee Ski Team and then we all joined the B.C. Disabled Ski Team. We all ended up making the national ski team about three years later.

In 1984 we made the team that was going to the Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria. That year I was lucky enough to put on a demonstration in Sarajevo for the Olympics and I ended up sixth in the GS. That was the first time a disabled athlete had put on a demonstration at the Olympics for the IOC.

Pique: You had several years of amazing successes after that. But by 1990 some had written you off. Then you were injured leading up the world championships in Winter Park. What happened?

Chew: I was all set to go. Then when I was training here on Whistler I crashed and I cracked three ribs and for about a month there was in a lot of pain. So when I got to the world championships I didn’t have very high expectations of what I could do.

No one was even thinking of me doing well, and they had kinda written me off. So I went balls to the wall, I had nothing to lose and I ended up winning three silver medals and I was ranked second in the world.

Then I went to the 1992 Olympics in Albertville (France). That was my last Olympics and that was when they connected the able-bodied and Paralympics together, so the Paralympics were just a couple of weeks later, like it is now.

I was 40 and my wife was pregnant and I thought it was time for me to retire. I had been on the team for 10 years by then.

The next year, 1993, I started coaching the B.C. Disabled Ski Team and I am still coaching it today.

Pique: When you look back at your experience with the Paralympics how has it changed over time?

Chew: The courses have become more challenging. We are now under women’s FIS (International Ski Federation) regulations so the vertical drop follows those regulations and that is a big improvement. That was taken up after 1992.

All the athletes wanted it to be more challenging. That is why, back at the beginning when I was in Paralympics, I didn’t do as well — well, everyone always has excuses. But on the more challenging courses I did really well. If there were jumps and it was very fast on the downhill I won those or I was on the podium. I liked that — I liked that a lot.

Pique: Were you concerned when some of the Paralympic events were moved to Vancouver after Whistler decided not to build a new ice arena, which would have been used for ice sledge hockey?

Chew: I was a little upset to start off with because they kind of got us up in Whistler involved in the Olympics in part because we were going to get a new skating rink. They dangled that carrot in front of us for quite a while and I think that was one of the main reasons a lot of people in this valley said, ‘yeah, we are for the Olympics. We are going to get this skating rink, we are going to get sledge hockey here, and after the Paralympics we will have this legacy.’

The sliding centre went from $55 million to $100 million and they… came up with the money for that. On the other hand I do not want to see our community have to service a huge debt. That would have left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. That said, having the sledge hockey down in Vancouver where they will have a larger audience, will probably get more publicity and more coverage, well I think that is cool.

Pique: Should the Paralympics and the Olympics run at the same time?

Chew: A lot of people are saying they would like the Olympics and Paralympics to be connected. But I think if they were connected we would get lost in the shuffle. It would be too big.

And we would be competing against say, the men’s downhill, the big glory event.

I am a disabled athlete and I am happy to be separate. A lot of the people who think there should be just one Games are able-bodied people who are trying to be politically correct. But I think it is great the way it is.

Pique: Are you getting enough funding now?

Chew: This year is the first year that the Disabled Skiers Association of B.C., through funding from Pacific Sport, has hired me as a full time coach with the B.C. Disabled Ski Team and that is a big step in the right direction.

And, at the national level, the number of services for athletes with a disability is the same as able-bodied teams. It has really changed in the last few years and I think that is because of the Paralympics — it is the catalyst to this happening.

Every sport is concerned that it won’t continue after the 2010 Games are over. But I think it works in cycles.

The equipment is very expensive. A sit-ski can cost $5,000. Local groups have helped out a lot, for example the Rotary Club in Whistler… gave us $3,000 for uniforms one year and they continue to help us make a difference.

Pique: Tell me about the BC Disabled Ski Team?

Chew: We have been identifying disabled skiers around the province through the Disabled Skiers Association of B.C.’s Building our Best Program. As part of that program my assistant coach, Dallis Smith, and I go around the province putting on two-day clinics in places like Silver Star, Mt. Washington, here in Whistler, and Sun Peaks. We identify athletes at these clinics and at the end of the year we invite them to a clinic here in Whistler as part of a recruitment drive. Usually we have about 10 athletes on the team at any one time.

We teach them how to ski better, introduce them to racing, and then help them get their FIS licence and they start to knock down their FIS points. That way when they move on to the National Development team, if they are lucky enough to do so, they have already started to reduce their FIS points.

How it works is that you need less than 100 FIS points to race in the World Cup at the elite level. They need fewer than 150 points to race in the Olympics because (the IOC/IPC) want a wider base so that more countries can enter more skiers.

There are three categories in skiing. There are sit skiers, blind skiers, and stand-up skiers and they are factored so there are different levels of disabilities in each in category. For the sit skiers it depends on how high their break is (along their spine) and their mobility, for example. It is the same with blind skiers — there is totally blind, which is B1, partially blind, B3, and more blind, B2.

Officials know from 25 years of keeping track how to reach an accurate factoring system. But it is an on-going thing.

Pique: What do you think the legacies will be from the Paralympics?

Chew: I am hoping that we will get Ptarmigan as a designated training hill. It will be widened and the tree islands will be taken out for the Olympics. I am hoping that after the Olympics there will be a spot there for us on an on-going basis — a permanent seven-days-a-week training area if we wanted it. That would be great.

…To my way of thinking about this, the U.S. has a war going on right now and they have 20,000 GIs coming back with all different disabilities and they are going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future. The best way to combat those numbers is by having a better training facility.

The athletes’ centre will also be a fully integrated accessible place so that when we have an event here we will have a place for people to stay.

Accessibility will be another legacy. I hope Vancouver will be more accessible and I think Whistler could be the most accessible resort in the world.

I look at it two ways. If it is accessible for a guy in a wheelchair then it is accessible for a mother with twins in a buggy and the old guy with a cane, and that is the way it should be.

For the resort, when a disabled person comes here he usually has two or three people with him and those people rent hotel rooms, they rent gear, they buy stuff, they go out for dinner, so it is a win-win situation when accessibility is improved.

Q How is it going to feel if a B.C. athlete with a disability is on the podium in 2010?

A: It will be great. It gets me warm in the heart to think that I have been able to contribute a little bit. But I love this. I love skiing.



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