UC helps skier maintain his gold-winning edge
03 August 2011
Gold medal-winning Paralympic skier Adam Hall called on UC's sport science expertise recently to help give him that competitive edge he needs to keep at the top of his sport.
UC sport scientists Carl Bradford (left) and Matt Shallcrass put Adam Hall through his paces, while coach Scott Olson, from the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Winter Park, Colorado, watches on.
Gold medal-winning Paralympic skier Adam Hall called on UC’s sport science expertise recently to help give him that competitive edge he needs to keep at the top of his sport.
The Wanaka-based athlete, who won gold in the slalom at the Vancouver Winter Paralympics in 2010, was on campus for lactate threshold testing with UC sport scientists to assess his aerobic fitness. This followed up tests carried out in UC’s wind tunnel in June where Adam’s body positioning and equipment was assessed.
“What we are doing is finding a whole range of bench marks from different areas and trying to get as much science behind what I do as we possible can,” said Adam.
The testing at UC would enable him and his coach to hone his training regime, Adam said.
“We can now practice/train the correct positions and so on time and time again as ‘practice makes permanent’. It also gives us more specific training zones to know what to train for and to know what my body specifically is doing throughout these different training zones, which is all vital when looking for peaking and recovery in high performance sport.”
Adam said he hoped to return to UC on an annual basis to check his progression from this “benchmark testing”.
His medium term goal is to compete successfully on the world cup circuit and he has his sights on the winner’s podium at the XI Paralympic Winter Games inSochi,Russia, where he wants another gold for slalom to add to his collection.
For more information please contact:
Maria De Cort
Communications Officer
Communications & External Relations
Mobile: +64 27 299 0741
maria.decort@canterbury.ac.nz
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