People have "different engines," alpine ski racer Adam Hall says, explaining his approach to life on the skifield slopes.
"We're all configured differently and life depends on the person. People look at me and how I walk and they think to themselves, `He can't ski. He's disabled'.
"But put them on a pair of skis next to me and they'll soon find out they're the ones with a disability."
Hall is right.
The 21-year-old from Outram knows he can motor down the skifield slopes and has an international record to prove it.
Later this month Hall will line up alongside other adaptive athletes to compete at the New Zealand Winter Games.
Born with spina bifida, Hall endured several operations as an infant to correct "all the screwed-up nerves in my back".
Many people with spina bifida are in wheelchairs.
The effect of the disease was similar to an incomplete spinal fracture, Hall said.
"When I walk it looks like my legs are going to snap," he said as he described his awkward wobbling gait.
Hall has never let his disability hold him back and sport has always been a mainstay in his life.
A product of Taieri College, he played cricket for the school, batting as high as No 3 and also rolling his arm over as a pace bowler.
But skiing changed his life.
Hall started the sport aged 6, as part of an adaptive ski programme at Cardrona Alpine Resort.
He moved to snowboarding a couple of years later, before switching back to skis in 2004, when he decided he wanted to be an Olympic athlete.
He skis with a connecting strap to keep his tips aligned - "I lack the muscles to keep my legs together" - and uses ski pole outriggers to help his balance.
In his final year at high school, Hall represented New Zealand at the 2006 Winter Paralympic Games in Turin, Italy.
The experience was an eye-opener for the then 18-year-old and provided a reality check about what he needed to succeed as a world-class skier.
While sacrifice and commitment are obvious prerequisites, in Hall's case it would seem that a huge capacity to endure pain is also handy.
In his debut World Cup race of his first northern hemisphere race season in 2007, Hall crashed into padded barriers on his last - and winning - run of the day.
"I tweaked my knee and it was quite sore. I ended up using duct tape to strap it up, so I could keep skiing through the season," he said.
Hall avoided getting an MRI scan on his injured knee, fearful of what the results might reveal.
"My leg would keep on flopping out and my knee would often dislocate in training. If I had a scan, they'd just put me on a flight home and that would be it."
Hall kept his sore knee to himself and nursed it through a race season, earning several World Cup podium finishes and also a couple of wins.
At home, an MRI scan confirmed his suspicions - he had ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament, an injury that usually forces any skier off snow and into rehabilitation.
Hall raced through the end of the northern hemisphere season with "a nasty stomach bug".
X-rays subsequently revealed a 4cm stone lodged in his bladder.
"It's hard to describe. Try imagining having something that big in your bladder, bouncing around every time you're training and skiing around. I was passing blood all the time," he said.
Hall had surgery to remove the stone, after he returned to New Zealand in April.
Now injury-free, he says he is fitter and stronger than ever and in the middle of a concentrated training period.
Back "where it all started," at Cardrona, Hall has again been an inspiration to the many participants at the Adaptive Snowsports Festival, this week.
Hall won the slalom, Super G, and giant slalom races to claim his fourth straight sweep of the national adaptive skiing championships.
He also walked away with his sport's top gongs - the Bruce Todd Memorial Trophy and Elliot Cup - for his performances on the slopes and overseas.
Hall has a trophy cabinet groaning with medals and silverware.
He was named New Zealand's snowsports athlete of the year for the second year in a row last month, after finishing a northern hemisphere winter as the second-ranked slalom skier in the world.
He accumulated 13 medals, including silver and bronze at the International Paralympics Committee World Cup finals series and a silver at the world championships, during the last 12 months.
While his focus is on the Vancouver Paralympics in March, the Winter Games in front of a home crowd would be an ideal test run for a "dream gold medal," he said.
Alpine ski racer
Born: Outram
Educated: Taieri College
- Represented New Zealand at 2006 Winter Paralympics in Turin.
- Has 13 podium finishes at World Cup adaptive ski events.
- Ranked second in world for adaptive slalom skiing (as at February).
- New Zealand adaptive champion 2005-09.
- New Zealand Snowsports athlete of the year 2008, 2009.
