FROM HORROR COMES INSPIRATION
MICHELLE SALT SEIZES ‘AN OPPORTUNITY THAT HAS COME FROM SOMETHING … TRAGIC’.
Michelle Salt wants to give her post-accident life meaning.
So the Calgarian eagerly awaits a chance to compete at the 2014 Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
Salt had her right leg amputated above the knee in the aftermath of a motorbike collision outside of Cochrane in June 2011. (She has the date of the accident tattooed on the back of her left leg.)
“Crazy to think it’s been two years since I hit that guardrail,” she wrote in her blog this past summer. “The memory of waking up confused, trying to rip the breathing tubes out of my mouth is still very fresh. But, then again, so is the moment I decided I was going to become a Paralympian.”
In Sochi, the 28-year-old plans to compete in para-snowboarding.
“That is an opportunity that has come from something horrible and tragic,” Salt said last month. “The chance to be a Paralympic athlete and to someday stand on the podium with a medal around my neck and represent my country ... there is nothing better than that. That is amazing.”
Canada’s para-snowboarding team was announced in Big White, B.C. following a World Cup competition Sunday.
Although Salt did not qualify for the team — she was unable to race due to a knee injury — she will have a chance to join the three other athletes by competing in the World Cup on Feb 10 to 12 in La Molina, Spain.
To join Canada’s para-snowboarding team in Sochi, athletes have to race at least once in the 2014 season.
This marks snowboarding’s debut at the Paralympics.
“One thing I have found with Paralympians is everybody has a story and every story is inspiring,” said Salt. “Why not take the time to get to know the athletes and their story and be inspired?
“Let yourself be motivated. I’d love to hear that more people wake up and find out they had lost a limb or that they are paralyzed and that it’s an opportunity now to be a Paralympian.”