Calgary sit-skier Kurt Oatway goes for one medal after long road back to Paralympics

Kurt Oatway, of Canada, competes in the alpine skiing men's downhill sitting competition at the 2026 Winter Paralympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

It’s simply competition. And Kurt Oatway’s desire is just to win and improve.

“It is a bigger race, it’s a more important race, but at the end of the day it’s just a race,” he said of the Paralympics.

The journey

The journey to being a two-time Paralympic medallist in Para alpine sit-skiing started from a place of nostalgia for the 42-year-old from Calgary.

“Just sitting at home watching the 2010 Vancouver Games and watching the alpine events and getting a little nostalgic about skiing,” he said. “... At the time I was still doing outpatient rehab at a hospital in Saskatoon and the physiotherapist was like trying to find ideas of trying to get more active and she suggested Nordic skiing.

“It turns out there was an adaptive program just outside of Regina with the Regina alpine ski team. And the guy running it, Gord Poulton, he had a program running for Para athletes, and they had some equipment. I came out, I tried it, in late March of 2010. And I’ve been doing it ever since, really.”

Oatway, who is set to compete in the slalom event on Sunday, originally began skiing when he was five years old. He had gone through the Nancy Greene program, a grassroots program of Alpine Canada, as well as the FIS program.

However, he eventually moved on and went to school, earning a bachelor of science degree in geology at the University of Saskatchewan, graduating in 2010. In September 2007, he suffered a spinal cord injury in a fall while on a university field trip studying sedimentary environments in Utah.

“I broke my back, and I was just like, ‘I can either sit here and feel sorry for myself, or I can get up and go do something,’” Oatway said.

At the 2014 Sochi Games, Oatway’s best result was a fifth-place finish in the downhill event. He broke out at the 2018 Pyeongchang Paralympics with gold in the men’s super-G.

But 2022 brought a different challenge. A month out from the Beijing Games, he suffered a broken collarbone, two torn ligaments, three broken ribs in five places, and a punctured lung in a crash at the world championships in Lillehammer, Norway.

“The world championships the previous year got cancelled. So they rescheduled to have them just before the Games in 2022, which might have seemed like a great idea, but probably not the greatest,” he said.

“Sitting at home watching the Games was pretty rough.”

However, he quickly channelled that energy into fuel for Italy, feeling as though he would have “done well” four years ago.

Oatway earned bronze at the Milan Cortina Paralympics in the downhill on March 7 in his return to the big stage. The podium finish prompted him to consider the idea of another Paralympic cycle if he wins some more at the Games.

“The road to coming back was long, but here I am, and I’ve got a piece of hardware to show for it,” he said. “If I keep winning stuff, who knows? Maybe I’ll make another (Paralympic) cycle.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 14, 2026.

Abdulhamid Ibrahim, The Canadian Press