An X-C Ski Program For the Blind
Ski for Light Offers Visually Impaired a Rare Sports Opportunity
Jun 5, 2008
Ski for Light, Inc. (SFL) is a weeklong program at which blind, sight- and mobility-impaired persons are paired with sighted guides to learn and to compete in cross-country skiing. The organization is headquartered in Minnesota, though the site of its flagship event moves among major U.S. Nordic ski centers each year. Its next event takes place from February 1-8, 2009 in Provo, Utah.
The event draws hundreds of blind and mobility impaired skiers from many countries and has been one of the most successful and enduring sports and recreation programs for the blind, with blind participants running the organization and shaping SFL’s development.
Guides are trained during a two-day course. They teach basic skills and proper form; they describe the landscape, and help skiers—whose abilities range from beginner to Paralympian—to gain the most from their experience
History of Ski for Light
Olav Pedersen, a native Norwegian who taught skiing in Breckenridge, Colorado, started Ski for Light in 1975. He modeled the event on the Ridderrenn, a race for blind and disabled skiers begun in Norway in 1964. Pedersen knew the program’s creator, Erling Stordahl (1923-1994), a well-known blind singer-songwriter. Pedersen met Stordahl in 1952 and sought to avail blind people in the United State of a similar sports opportunity.
Cross country skiing proved to be an activity that blind people both enjoyed and excelled at.
The growth of disabled sports in the 1980s attracted an increasing number of mobility-impaired participants, who use “sit-skis” and shorter poles, their guides behind them, helping then steer.
SFL’s Norway connection was crucial; the country sent over 40 skiers, guides, and technicians to Frisco, Colorado in 1975 for the first “Race for Light,” which also included 20 blind skiers from the US and Canada.
A Norwegian contingent of over 30 skiers still attends each Ski for Light, which, in turn, sends two teams (skier and guide) to the Ridderrenn each year.
From Compassion to Competition
A nonprofit was launched 1976, the name “Ski for Light” chosen to deemphasize competition, though each SFL week still ends with a race/rally.
People who had never skied before that week suddenly don race bibs, queue up with their guides, and, as in any Nordic race, wait their turn to start, pushing off at the sound of the horn. As they finish there’s cheering, their names announced over the loudspeaker, and a medal placed around their neck.
The race/rally gives many blind skiers their first intoxicating taste of competition. For some, it’s a life-changing moment, igniting athletic careers, and epiphanies of disappearing boundaries and newfound confidence and abilities. SFL’s motto is “If I can do this, I can do anything.”
Ski for Light Community Grows
Participants were housed in private homes for the first SFL event in 1975, but switched to hotel accommodations the following year. The SFL week has takes place at some of America’s largest Nordic ski centers, including: Anchorage, Ala., Squaw Valley, Calif., Granby, Colo., Bend, Ore., and Woodstock, Vt., with hotel accommodations.
The hotel decision enabled the program to create a feeling of community and led to the development of its social component, which now includes special interest sessions, a talent show, and a night celebrating Norwegian culture.
Ski for Light continues to grow, attracting more than 250 skiers and guides to each event.
The organization has also increased opportunities for blind and visually impaired sports participation by spawning regional SFL programs throughout the U.S., including New England, Wisconsin, Colorado, Northern California. Each program is run independently and many now offer summer activities such as tandem cycling and hiking in addition to skiing.
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