2 days ago
Familiar faces back for Paralympic Winter Games
Two of our top Paralympians have been reselected to represent New Zealand at the Paralympic Winter Games in Italy next year.
Five-time medallist Adam Hall made the cut for the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games — and in historic fashion.
Dunedin-born, Hall, 37, will be the first New Zealand Para athlete to make an appearance at six consecutive Paralympic Winter Games.
He told 1News at a gym training session in Wānaka: "I don't reflect too much on that yet but I'm sure, one day, I will."
"It's a huge honour and it's a privilege. It's an opportunity to represent and showcase what it is that we do on the highest level,."
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He joins the summer Kiwi Paralympians Graham Condon and Michael Johnson in the landmark feat of six appearances. But it's a first in the winter games.
Hall, who was born with spina bifida, made his debut at Torino 2006 — also in Italy. He claimed a gold medal in the Men's Slalom Standing at Vancouver 2010, regaining title eight years later in PyeongChang plus bronze medals there and Beijing 2022.
Now he's back for another games.
"To be what feels like being selected pretty early on in the piece does quite good, because we can get that process behind us and now we can just focus on what it is that we're here to do."
So, would be his last crack? "It is quite a common question and rightly so," Hall said. "Because when an athlete has been around for over 20 years, that's often going to be a question.
"I'm not really too concerned about when I walk away or decide whether it's going out on top or not. It'll be one of those stories where you wake up or you just have the feeling that, you know, enough's enough."
Peters had failed to finish in either of his two training runs, but was sensational when it mattered most.
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Also named, Corey Peters, 41, who will defend his Men's Downhill Sitting title at his fourth Paralympics.
The sit skier was raised in New Plymouth and sustained a crushed spinal cord competing in a motocross event 16 years ago.
He claimed a silver medal on debut in Sochi 2014 in the Men's Giant Slalom Sitting discipline, adding a bronze four years later — followed by a gold and silver in Beijing 2022.
Peters took a year out from the sport after the birth of his daughter in 2022.
But he told 1News, in recent times, he has taken time to get back into the rhythm of training again after another shoulder injury.
"At the lead-up to PyeongChang in Korea, I dislocated my shoulder two months before the games... and then this cycle has been disrupted again with another shoulder dislocation. This one was a little bit more serious," Peters said.
"It took a full year to rehab it and get it back to reasonable strength again."
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But the distruption has Peters fired up, back at the gym and feeling stronger than ever.
"It's quite nice to have minimal shoulder niggles now so I can actually feel like you know you're kind of getting some strength gains back in the gym without kind of being hindered."
While Hall and Peters are familiar faces — both athletes have a new coach. Daniel Bogue has been brought in to get the men prepared for the games next March.
"It's my first games so I'm going in with two seasoned campaigners... we're tracking really well, so, fingers crossed we can keep tracking the right direction and I'm really excited about it, really positive," Bogue told 1News.
