The Skiing Aigners Are a Nation Unto Themselves

YANQING, China — The 2022 Winter Paralympics ended Sunday with China successful, by far, probably the most medals, 61, adopted by the undaunted Ukrainian workforce and Canada.

But when the Aigner household, the 4 snowboarding siblings from rural Austria, had been a rustic, they’d have completed eighth at these Video games. They captured extra medals on their very own, 11 (six golds), than nations like Norway, Japan, Italy and Sweden.

Veronika and the twins Johannes and Barbara, together with Elisabeth, Veronika’s older sister and information, are a powerhouse ski nation unto themselves. They’re the von Trapps of Austrian vision-impaired snowboarding, and their debut on the Paralympics created lots of buzz.

The Aigners’ different guides are Klara Sykora and Matteo Fleischmann, who’re boyfriend and girlfriend and honorary members of the Alpine Aigner clan, which took dwelling 9 of Austria’s 13 medals. (The guides’ medals don’t depend within the official standings, however Elisabeth Aigner stated she would cherish her two as a lot as anybody else within the household.)

“We’re very lucky to expertise this as a result of not everybody can say they went to the Paralympics,” Elisabeth Aigner stated. “However to have the ability to share it with the entire household is unimaginable.”

It was a household vacation, she stated, however with lots of medals.

Veronika Aigner, 19, gained two gold medals with Elisabeth, 23, snowboarding down in entrance of her. Once they gained the primary gold on Friday, they embraced on the end line for over a minute.

“Throughout that hug, we weren’t talking lots as a result of we had been crying a lot,” Veronika stated. “We had been so glad, and so happy with Babsi, too.”

Babsi is Barbara Aigner, 16, the dual of Johannes Aigner. They burst onto the para Alpine ski scene on the world championships in January in Lillehammer, Norway, like a sudden storm, successful gold medals of their first main worldwide competitors.

When Johannes arrived in China, he was not sure he would even enter the vision-impaired downhill race till he fared effectively in a observe run. He entered and gained gold, then gained one other gold within the large slalom, and 5 medals in all.

These Paralympics are over, however the vision-impaired Alpine ski world must take care of this household for a very long time.

“We’ve got lots of years forward of us,” Barbara stated by means of Sykora, her information. “The purpose is to maintain persevering with what we began.”

For many rivals within the age of Covid, touring to the Paralympics meant going alone. Members of the family weren’t allowed to hitch grownup rivals, however one mother or father or guardian may accompany every athlete beneath 18.

That enabled each mother and father, Petra and Christian Aigner, to make the journey, one for every of their 16-year-old twins. The one one who couldn’t journey was Irmgard, the eldest, who as soon as served as Veronika’s information.

The three racers, Veronika, Barbara and Johannes, all have congenital cataracts, a situation at start that causes cloudiness on the lens of the attention, which might trigger decreased imaginative and prescient and blindness. The vision-impaired siblings have all had at the very least two surgical procedures to stabilize the decay, however they nonetheless have problem seeing and depend on guides to get down the slopes.

Petra Aigner was born with the identical situation and has had 30 surgical procedures to maintain it from rising worse. She is unable to see her kids race from the stands, so Christian Aigner provides her turn-by-turn updates.

“I’m glad I can’t see it,” Petra Aigner stated by means of an interpreter shortly after her daughters completed first and second within the slalom. “I’d be too nervous.”

The Aigners dwell on a farm in Gloggnitz, a hamlet of roughly 6,000 folks about an hour south of Vienna on the Austrian autobahn. The farm has 30 chickens that produce eggs for the household and neighbors, 4 work horses, a donkey and rabbits.

Christian Aigner works as a caretaker for a water pipeline that runs by means of close by woods, and Petra tends to the farm, together with Barbara, who loves animals.

The older sisters had been the primary to ski; quickly, all joined in. Sykora, who met them by means of racing, finally turned Barbara’s information. Her father, Thomas Sykora, gained the bronze medal in slalom on the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

He now works as a tv commentator. In one in all his gigs, he dons a video digital camera atop his helmet and careens down the mountain, giving viewers in ski-mad Austria a way of the course. He’s a information, of types, and Klara Sykora performs comparable work, only for a single particular person.

One evening final 12 months, Klara Sykora went to dinner on the Aigners’ dwelling and introduced her boyfriend, Fleischmann, who was additionally a ski racer. Petra seen how effectively Fleischmann acquired together with Johannes and requested him to function her son’s information.

The information position is vital in vision-impaired snowboarding and requires immaculate teamwork and an nearly sacred belief. Guides descend the course forward of the racer — not too far forward, or they gained’t be heard, however not so near gradual the racer or trigger a crash. They name out the turns and bumps as they go. It’s a distinctive bond, which explains why Sykora and Fleischmann are honorary Aigners.

“We really feel very honored to be a part of this household,” Klara Sykora stated.

Quickly after the group arrived in China for the Paralympics, the athletes’ village in Yanqing was dotted with Aigners in every single place, particularly when the mother and father, who stayed in a resort, joined them.

The previous few days of racing, specifically, felt like a celebration of Aigner dominance on the slopes. There was Veronika and Elisabeth hovering down, nearly as if tethered by string, adopted on the medal podium by Barbara Aigner and Klara Sykora, whereas Johannes Aigner and Fleischmann racked up medals of their very own.

In his first run on the enormous slalom Friday, Johannes Aigner and Fleischmann had been in second place, robust sufficient to nearly guarantee a medal, so long as Johannes didn’t wipe out in his second run.

However he needed extra. He advised Fleischmann he meant to go all out of their second run, a lot the way in which his Austrian forebear, Franz Klammer, did on the 1976 Olympics.

“It was a big gamble,” Fleischmann stated with amusing, “however we talked it over and I fully supported his determination. And it paid off.”

When it was over, they greeted the remainder of the household and surrogate members of the family, all however the mother and father within the uniform of the Austrian Paralympic Alpine racing workforce, a household nation of medal-winning Aigners.

“I’m actually glad to have all my sisters and fogeys right here,” Johannes Aigner stated, with Fleischmann serving as translator. “It was unbelievable to come back into the end space and they’re all right here, cheering for you and hugging you and crying for you. It’s simply unbelievable.”