Allergic to cold, Calgarian goes for gold

To overcome an allergy is one thing. To overcome an allergy to cold temperatures and go on to compete at the Winter Olympics is another.

Noah Bowman was just 17 when he first started to see the signs of cold urticaria four years ago as he tucked into his breakfast cereal.

“It was pretty strange,” said the Calgary native. “It came out of nowhere one summer. I started having swelling in my hands when I touched cold things and it kept getting worse to the point that when holding my cereal bowl in the morning, the cold milk would make my hand swell.

“I just thought it was so weird, but didn’t think a whole lot about it, and jumped into a really cold lake one time. I ended up having an anaphylactic reaction where my throat swelled up. I went completely blind and lost my energy for a little while.”

Despite medical advice to the contrary, Bowman decided to return to the slopes.

Tuesday, he’ll compete in the ski halfpipe event in Sochi as a legitimate medal threat, after a secondplace finish at a World Cup in Calgary last month.

“I knew it wouldn’t stop me from skiing,” he said. “The doctors said I would have to stop, but I knew I could cover up or find some way around the direct contact with the cold. I covered up a lot and I ended up just growing out of it after a year. It just faded away and I am not affected by it anymore.”