Athletes arrive in Austria
OTAGO’S Ben Blanche and Nathan Symister have touched down in Austria before next week’s Special Olympics World Winter Games.
Symister, of Dunedin, and Blanche, of Cromwell, will both compete in the alpine skiing section of the tournament
Starting on Tuesday and running for 12 days, the games will involve 3000 athletes with an intellectual disability from 117 nations competing across nine wintersports categories.
Symister has a 27year association with the Dunedin based Special Olympics Otago club.
He has competed extensively at New Zealand and Australian competitions, though his trip to Austria will be his first northern hemisphere based competition.
Symister’s record includes a gold and silver medal at the National Winter
Games, last year.
When he is not competing, Symister works for local business Cargill Enterprises.
Blanche has been competing with the Special Olympics Central Otago club since 2005.
He has progressed through the national skiing ranks and won three medals at the 2015 National Winter Games, in Cardrona.
Blanche works in the hos pitality industry in Cromwell, and is also keen on a range of other sports.
The Otago pair are part of a 13strong contingent of New Zealand athletes in Graz, Austria, the largest New Zealand delegation to have taken part in World Winter Games.
They will compete alongside 3,000 athletes from 110 nations at the games in Graz.
The New Zealand athletes are supported by a team of seven volunteer management and coaching staff.
Three of the team have Southern connections.
Otago’s Johnny Gilbert has headed over to Austria as the team’s snowboarding coach, while Southland’s Dave Cowie coaches the alpine skiing team.
Dunedin’s Brian Benn is overseeing the management of the whole team, as head of delegation.