Originally Published in 2024
“What are you going to do now, you old fart? Surely your time is up?” Skier Adam Hall admits it’s a natural question to ask an athlete who’s been competing at a high level for 20 years and currently training for his sixth Paralympic campaign. But from the start, he has been confounding expectations.
When he was born, Adam was diagnosed with spina bifida, a disease that reduces muscle power and affects movement. He never let it stop him from trying things and started skiing at age six. He took up snowboarding for a few years, then returned to skiing and debuted in the standing slalom at the Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games at age 19, finishing a fair way off the podium.
“There were so many unknowns when I was young,” he says. “I always had a sit ski in the garage in case anything went too wrong, but I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to last this long, year after year, and season after season.” Four years after his Paralympic debut, Adam won gold in the standing slalom event in Vancouver. He repeated the feat in the same event in PyeongChang in 2018. “You can have results or excuses, but not both,” he says.
But, as the old adage goes, you can’t be what you can’t see, and while Adam says he’s a typically humble New Zealander, he is a recognisable athlete. That’s undoubtedly due to his many sporting achievements, but he says the death of his mother Gayle in a car crash soon after his Paralympics gold medal in 2010 also raised his profile. “I can be that example to show that no matter what your situation is you can still go out there and have a dream and pursue that,” he says. “I have a lot of gratitude for being able to do what I do because the majority of it is on the taxpayer dollar, but I’ve always felt like I’ve had the support of the nation.”
He says the perception is that those with disabilities are more at risk of being hurt. And while he’s had his fair share of injuries, he thinks his at-times punishing training regime has been beneficial to him. In fact, he considers himself something of a real-life research project, testing his limits to see what someone with his condition is capable of. “You never know what impact training will have on your body as a disabled athlete, but it’s probably helped the longevity of my career, on snow but also off snow, and what life looks like for me from a wellbeing perspective. I didn’t want to finish the sport and end up in a chair, so I’m thinking long-term from that perspective.”
Adam is now 36, so he’s had to change his approach to training. “The body has been through the wringer over the last 12months and it’s catching up on me, so it’s about being smarter with training, getting over myself when I have to take it a bit easier,” he says. “You’ve got to trust that the cake has been baked and you just need to put on the icing.”
His wife Elitsa competed at two Paralympics for the US and retired after Vancouver, going on to complete her studies. Pre-Covid they spent the northern winter training in Colorado, but they now do their travelling and training in blocks. In 2022, they spent Christmas in the US with their four-year-old Gracelynn, then Adam came back to New Zealand for strength and conditioning work. At the end of 2023, he headed to Europe to train in conditions closer to what he’ll experience if he qualifies for the 2026 games in Milano-Cortina.
“It’s now more about balance and family life. Happy off snow, happy on snow,” he says. “The first couple of campaigns, everything was pretty intimidating and daunting and there’s all that outside noise, so it’s all about how you look at it. At the end of the day, (the Winter Olympics) is just another race.”
The Pinnacle Programme helped him to tune out that noise. Adam was one of the original graduates of the programme in 2010 when it was focused on elite athletes working towards a big event. “The idea back then was about trying to create holistic athletes that could deal with anything.” The programme has undergone several changes since, and the range of recipients has broadened to include artists, scientists and environmentalists. Adam is still involved as a selector.
While he didn’t get to partake in Outward Bound or Spirit of Adventure, he has definitely challenged himself and set himself up for life after sport. “The body will make the call that time is up,” he says. “In all honesty, I don’t think it will be one thing that I’ll be doing after that, it will be a number of things.”
As an athlete, he already sits on several committees throughout the world, from International Para Skiing to Snow Sports NZ. He is also part of a working group developing a new disability strategy across New Zealand. Run by Te Whatu Ora –Health New Zealand, it aims to make access to healthcare easier for those with disabilities.
During Covid, Adam completed a fast-tracked degree at Otago Polytechnic, gaining a Bachelor of Management with a major in Sport Management. He’s also looking at doing something through the Institute of Directors to further his ambitions in governance, and he’ll continue to do public speaking. “People always ask about coaching,” he says, “but it’s hard to carry gates or set courses, so it would be more of a mentoring role and passing on the knowledge that I’ve gained. It’s about trying to make it better for the next person.”
The Paralympic movement has been trying to improve things for those with disabilities since the first official winter games in 1976. In recent years, events have been held in countries such as China, Korea and Russia –places that have traditionally looked sideways at those with disabilities –which Adam believes helps to create a more inclusive world.
Adam says there is growing recognition of Paralympic athletes and the obstacles they have to overcome, and there is also a lot more focus on snow sports now than when he was starting out. This is due in large part to athletes like Adam, Corey Peters, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, Nico Porteous and Jossi and Jackson Wellsachieving great things on the international stage. “When I first started, it was cycling, rowing and other mainstream sports that were taking all the awards, and in recent times, it’s been snow sports.” In addition to being named Para Athlete of the Year at the 2018 Halberg Awards, Adam received the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award the same year, which is given to two Paralympians who best embody the spirit of the Paralympic movement. He is the only New Zealander to have received it.
Living in Wānaka, Adam sees quite a few aspiring winter athletes with big dreams. But despite his family’s competitive streak, there are no plans to force Gracelynn into serious snow sports. “She told me recently, ‘I don’t ever, ever, ever want to go skiing, ever, ever, ever,’” he laughs. When she did head up the mountain, she loved it, so don’t rule out seeing another young star on the podium in a few years’ time.