The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
ALPINE SKIING
Impairment doesn’t stop Denouden
“She guides me through the course because I can’t see the gates. She can tell me, ‘leftright, left-right’ or what the hill is like and I can tell her to go faster or go slower. We are used to each other and we trust each other.”
Hayden Denouden won’t let a visual impairment interfere with his passion for ski racing. “I really like going fast, around the gates. It’s exciting,” the 12-year-old from Halifax said before a practice run at Ski Martock.
Hayden was born with retinopathy. His mother Cheyanne d’entremont said he was completely blind at 10 weeks old but since gained a little bit of vision.
“Unless you’re a metre away, he won’t necessarily know who he’s speaking to or what he’s looking at,” Cheyanne said. “For every 200 feet you see, he sees in 20. He has no peripheral and two bad eyes, with one being the worst. So, he’s really looking out of the better of the two.
“And he has no depth perception. So, if there’s a decrease in the slope, he’s not going to know it’s there.”
Even at an early age, it wouldn’t stop Hayden from carving turns on the slopes.
He started skiing with his mom at the age of five and has been competing in the slalom and giant slalom for the past three years. He races with a guide just in front of him and they communicate with each other through headsets.
This year, a full-time guide – 18-year-old Dalhousie student Zianne Khalifa of Bedford – has been hired to assist Hayden.
“She guides me through the course because I can’t see the gates,” Hayden said.
“She can tell me, ‘left-right, left-right’ or what the hill is like and I can tell her to go faster or go slower. We are used to each other and we trust each other.”
Cheyanne said a guide for a visually-impaired skier “is like an important piece of equipment.”
Zianne, a former competitive ski racer herself, began working with Hayden during dry-land training last fall.
They first hit the slopes together in January. However, Zianne said the pair didn’t find “the right rhythm until about two or three weeks later.”
“Once we found it, we began to go faster and getting around the gates easier,” Zianne recalled.
“At first, I was a little scared. But I love racing in general and this was a great way to continue in the sport.
Hayden Denouden, about skiing with his guide Zianne Khalifa
“It took a while to get used to each other,” she added. “We weren’t following the same line and I was still getting to know him. Over time we have got comfortable with each other. I learned how fast he would go behind me and knowing how many seconds it would take for me to turn before he did. I try to stay within two gates of each other. Any further than that, then he can’t really see me.
“If we have to time to tuck, for example, I’ll tell him to tuck. If there’s a terrain change, I’ll tell him, whether it’s a steep pitch or if it’s flat. If I’m getting too far, I’ll slow down. If he’s too close, I’ll speed up a bit. Overall, we haven’t had any issues with that. It has worked.”
A full-time guide with practices three times a week and the occasional competitive race is costly.
Fundraising has helped and Ski Nova Scotia, Cheyanne said, has provided some funding.
“To get the commitment from somebody consistently is difficult if it’s not paid,” she said. “The communication and trust are very important so it can’t be a revolving position.”
Hayden has aspirations of competing for the province in para alpine ski at the 2023 Canada Winter Games in P.E.I. (Crabbe Mountain, a ski hill 45 minutes north of Fredericton, N.B., will be the ski venue).
“I want to go to the Canada Games and compete against other para skiers,” Hayden said. “That would be fun.”
A spot on the podium isn’t out of the question.
He earned medals at the last two Ontario Parasport Games. In 2019, he took home bronze in both the slalom and giant slalom. The next year, he won gold in the GS and another bronze in the slalom.
And he continues to improve.
Hayden and Zianne raced in their first competition together at last weekend’s Dave Wilson Memorial Cup Race at Ski Wentworth. The event attracted nearly 50 youth skiers from across the province competing in slalom and giant slalom.
The pair were entered in the four-race giant slalom.
“It went really well,” Zianne said. “We cut down almost 20 seconds between the first and the fourth race. It was a really big improvement.”