By AMP Media I For The IPC
Elaheh Gholi Fallah has always been an inspiring, defiant figure but the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games changed everything.
“It is when I understood we can try and we can live regardless of discrimination, regardless of difference of culture, regardless of different category. We can be together and try together,” said Fallah, who competed in Para cross-country skiing.
“It was one of the best experiences of my life.”
Fallah was the first and so far the only Iranian woman to qualify for the Paralympic Winter Games. Vision impaired from the age of five, due to fluid in the brain and a tumour, she has long refused to let her disability define her. Six months after losing her sight, she started riding a bicycle and was soon going out on her own, despite her parents’ understandable fury. Track and field followed at school but then came Para Nordic skiing and the opportunity to change her life and the lives of others.
Imagen Puriya Khaliltash competed in border cross and banked slalom in the men’s SB-UL class at PyeongChang 2018 ⒸOIS PhotosBy Lena Smirnova | For the IPC
Winter is a busy season for Puriya Khaliltash.
Not only is the Para snowboarder from the Islamic Republic of Iran training daily to qualify for his second Paralympic Games while balancing a full-time job as a snowboard instructor, he is also helping to design the courses that he trains on.
Khaliltash’s story is just one example of the tenacious spirit shared by three sports enthusiasts who are determined to make Iran’s second appearance in the Para snowboard events at the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Games even more memorable than the first.