Sept 20, 2007

September: Petter Ledin, skier

After completing a clean sweep at the Swedish nationals last season things are heating up for sit skier Petter Ledin. This season he will ski the entire European cup and the year after he plans to move ahead to the world cup.
Meet a skier who changed equipment, but still hits the slopes as hard as ever.

In may 2000 the life of Petter Ledin changed more drastically than most of us can imagine. Petter, a former extreme sports fanatic, broke his back in a moto x accident and became semi paralysed from the waist and down. Although the injury to the spinal cord was “incomplete”, meaning he could still stand up and walk a bit, it was evident from the beginning that he would never again be able to practice the sports he loved. At least not in the manner he used to. Before the accident Petter was a top windsurfer and a highly accomplished skier.

Sit skiing was something that he came in contact with early after the accident. At first he was rather sceptical to the sport.

- Sit skiing felt like a bad substitute, something that was supposed to resemble skiing. I didn’t even want to try it. So I started snowmobiling instead and did that for four years. I also did quiet a lot of amateur car racing, which is something I still do.

Besides his work as a groundwater engineer in the family run business GVT, motorsport became Petter’s main interest in the years following the accident. It was all good, but he still felt something important was missing. When vacationing in the Swedish ski resort of Åre he saw his friends hitting the mountain every day – and although snowmobiling gave a temporary relief to his thirst for adrenalin, he soon realized how much he missed the slopes. In 2004 he met Marit Ruth, a former world sit skiing champion. Marit convinced Petter to give sit skiing a try and a few days later he did.

- I thought I’d finally give it a chance and it didn’t take long before I understood that it wasn’t just a substitute to skiing. It was something completely new.

From that day on he was hooked. Today, three years later, he’s considered the best male sit skier in Sweden. At the national championships last season he made a clean sweep winning gold in all three disciplines: slalom, giant slalom and super G. He also made his debut in the European cup and his best result there was an eleventh place.

Petter, how good will you get?

- The best sit skiers in the world are very good and I still have a long way to go, but I think I can do much better in the European cup than I did last year. And if everything goes according to plans I will try the world cup as well, not this season but hopefully next season. My goal is to participate in the Paralympics in Vancouver, 2010.

Do you think it’s an advantage that you have skied a lot before your injury?

- I think it’s a big advantage. Sit skiing is very different from skiing in many ways, but in terms of technique the two have a lot in common. The snow is also the same, the courses are very similar and we use the same skies, so surely it’s good to have skied before.

Do you actually race in the same slopes as the alpine racers?

- Yes we do. Sometimes it’s pretty challenging, especially in the faster disciplines like downhill and super G, when the speed is very high.

Do you ever get scared?

- No, never when I’m skiing. But falling can sometimes be a bit sketchy since it’s very hard to regain control after a fall. The sides of the sit ski are very slippery, so sometimes it feels like instead of slowing down the speed actually increases when you fall.

-How fast can you go on a sit ski?

- That depends on the discipline and the course. In super G the top speed is around 120 km/h. In downhill speeds around 140 km/h have been meassured. But I haven’t raced downhill yet. We do not have that in Sweden. Next season on the European cup I will give it a try.

Is the equipment very important?

- Yes, to some extent it’s important just like in regular alpine racing. To be competitive on higher levels you need to have a good sit ski with a good ski under it and a racing binding. But equpiment is of course not everything.

How much is a good sit ski?

- Between 30 000 – 40 000 SEK (Euro 3200 – 4300).

How much do you train?

- This season I’m going to be a part of the Swedish national team, so I guess it’s going to be slightly different - more competitions and more training. Last season I think I did seven camps on snow in total, mostly together with Totalskidskolan (a training group for disabled skiers). Back home I train with the regular alpine skiers in Bjursås Alpina, the alpine club in my hometown Falun. During summer I try to do as much biking as I can and some weight training as well. The back and the abdominal muscles are the most important muscles in sit skiing.

Petter likes to promote: Totalskidskolan

Recipe for men’s man of the month in September

Name: Petter Ledin.

Age: 34.

Family: Girlfriend Åsa and their daughter Elvira.

Occupation: Engineer at the family business, GVT, a company specializing in groundwater engineering and consultancy.

Sponsors: SOS Sportswear, POC and Bjursås Ski Center.

Merits: At the age of nineteen he was ranked among Sweden's top ten windsurfers. He was also an accomplished skier racing bumps on national level. Today he's a fast driver and Sweden's best sit skier.

Vanity level: 3,8 - He tries he's best to apply the natural look, but we had a sneak peak in his bathroom cabinet, and it's contents doesn't come cheap, we promise.

Enjoys on his spare time: Amateur car racing, socializing, beer drinking.

Most beautiful place on earth: The coastline of lake Varpan outside of Falun, Sweden.

The world’s most beautiful man: Mikael Persbrandt (Swedish actor).