Feature - Ludbrook

Mark Ludbrook seeks recognition simply as a good skier

Mark Ludbrook, or Luddy, as he’s also known locally, is undoubtedly one of Whistler’s most accomplished and ambitious athletes. For almost 20 years Ludbrook has represented Canada at national and international sporting events around the world as a left leg, below-knee amputee – initially as a member of the Canadian Disabled Swimming Team for 12 years, until 1992, and subsequently as a member of the Canadian National Disabled Ski Team. During that time, he has worked up an impressive sporting resume, including breaking of three national disabled freestyle swimming records and taking home multiple medals in the Canadian Disabled Ski Championships, Disabled World Cups and both the summer and winter Paralypic Games, including a bronze medal in super G at the 1998 Nagano Paralympics. Most recently he came fourth in the GS at the 2000 World Champs in Switzerland.

According to ski industry statistics, most people get involved with the sport initially through their families. However, Ludbrook says his desire to hit the slopes came as a surprise to his non-skiing family.

"After the accident with a snow-blower when I was young I remember saying in hospital that I didn’t want them to amputate my leg because I wouldn’t be able to ski – so my mother enrolled me in the learn-to-ski program at Georgian Peaks, Ontario the year after." Ludbrook says skiing was "love at first try" although it was a challenge. "I learned with just the one ski and outriggers at first because there wasn’t a suitable prosthetic available," he says.

Upon moving to Whistler in 1992, however, he quickly realized the benefits of using an artificial limb and therefore two skis.

"If you’ve got the knee you might as well use it, it’s that extra joint available for skiing," he explains. "Missing an ankle still offers a challenge though because you don’t have that flexion to absorb the bumps and be smooth through them."

He says overall it means less pressure available for edging. The secret apparently lies in making balanced left and right turns.

"Certainly for racing it takes a little more of a soft touch to be where you want to be and go the speeds. If you’re too hard on the edge it’s going to slow you down, and too soft you’re going into the fence."

The winter of 1992-93, however, proved not to be the season for Ludbrook’s planned concentrated ski experience in Whistler. With a base of less than 100 centimetres by January, he took off for whiter pastures in the French Alps, and took up snowboarding. He says in Chamonix especially, the challenging off-piste terrain meant it was safer to be on a board than skis unless you were highly experienced. Still, there were a few hairy moments.

"At times I was holding the prosthesis on with duck tape," he laughs.

"Whistler-Blackcomb obviously offers challenging skiing but in France it’s quite a bit larger and there’s a lot more inherent danger, like crevices and ice-pitches that can kill you."

He says snowboarding was fun but wasn’t his life dream. Upon his return to Whistler in the spring of ’93, it wasn’t long before he was back into skiing and within two years had won the gold in slalom and the silver in downhill and super G in the 1995 Canadian Championships.

"My goal has always been to be recognized not so much as a good disabled skier but as a good skier with the best of them."

However, he feels disabled athletes still have a hard battle ahead to gain the recognition they deserve and overcome peoples’ prejudices.

"The attitude is, ‘These guys are doing so well, they’re missing a leg or in a wheelchair doing sit-skiing and look at them going down the mountain, isn’t that great’," he explains. "But if you look at the top 20 guys, they really are cut-throat athletes, they want to win, they think they’re the best, just like any world-class athletes."

Ludbrook believes the media is largely to blame for misconceptions that disabled athletes aren’t true athletes.

"Able-bodied racing is just about who gets down the hill the fastest, period. An Olympic medal, for example, is worth money and is about talks and tours, whereas a Paralympic or parallel medal is looked upon as a personal achievement, rather than a great athletic achievement."

He says to date the local press coverage of his own wins has been very limited, which unfortunately is the norm for disabled competitors.

"They estimate there are around 200,000 new disabled people every year in North America, so there are probably a lot of young people who don’t realize what programs are out there and what they can achieve, whether in racing or just for fun."

However, Ludbrook adds that the current system of adjusting disabled athletes’ rankings according to their personal handicap makes it difficult for media to identify and therefore highlight champions. He says the multitude of classifications also makes it hard for the media to put a value on a medal.

"I would love to see one classification where everyone is put in together and you have one winner for the downhill, for example," he says. "But until they come up with a system that allows this to happen effectively and fairly, it will be hard for disabled athletes to gain the credentials and support they deserve."

Ludbrook believes attitudes towards disabled sports are better in Europe and Australia, "because people there view sport as the whole rather than you’re the best of the damaged." But he says recognition of the great things being achieved by disabled athletes will continue to improve slowly – provided enough new athletes keep coming onboard.

"I’d like to see numbers grow from involvement, not necessarily the racing, but just to have the freedom of the hill so to speak," he says, looking at Blackcomb Mountain. "Nobody smiles as big as they do on a powder day – smiles big enough to fall into. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a sit skier, you’re blind, with or without any disability – the charge you get from gliding down a mountainside of fresh snow, it’s irreplaceable and it’s incredible. If you get more people out there experiencing it, maybe it’ll make their lives better, you know."

In the short-term, Ludbrook hopes to make the final team for the 2002 Papalympics in Salt Lake City and just keep on competing.

"I get a real kick coming out to local races in Whistler and beating people, especially those with two legs," he laughs. "I hope to be a good competent skier well into life retirement and keep doing those master races and winning. Skiing gives me such a great thrill and joy and feeling, I just want to be the best skier I can be, and we’ll just have to see where that goes."