Current:Home > NewsCanadian para surfer Victoria Feige fights to get her sport included in 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics-LoTradeCoin
Canadian para surfer Victoria Feige fights to get her sport included in 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics
View Date:2024-12-23 20:35:04
Surfing is California’s official state sport and Canadian para surfer Victoria Feige wants Los Angeles to prove it in 2028.
The five-time women’s world champion is at the forefront of a lobby to get her sport included in the 2028 Paralympics.
LA’s organizing committee has said it would not propose para surfing as a new sport for the event because of “cost and complexity.”
That dumbfounded Feige. California has hosted every world para surfing championship since the first in 2015.
“I was devastated,” Feige said. “I have been hearing about the movement toward the Paralympics for para surfing since 2018.
“I won my first world title and I was urine-tested right after according to WADA anti-doping regulations. It felt important, progressive and we had this momentum.”
There are nine para surf classifications encompassing missing limbs, prosthetics, paralysis and visual impairment.
The 39-year-old Feige competes in the women’s kneeling classification. She mistimed a jump while snowboarding in Colorado at age 18, fractured vertebrae in her spine and was paralyzed below the waist.
“I have been so lucky and grateful to be able to surf again and find a community and compete for my country and reach the highest levels and push my sport forward in ways I never considered,” Feige said. “While I am in still sort of the prime of my life, I would like to help my sport reach this global stage and I would love to compete for Canada and win the gold for Canada.”
The International Surfing Association has turned its attention to Brisbane in 2032, but Feige isn’t giving up on 2028.
A “Save Paralympic Surfing L.A. 2028" petition started by para surfer Jack Bogle has almost 27,000 signatures.
Feige has appeared in videos with surfing star Kelly Slater and musician Jack Johnson, who have endorsed para surfing for Paralympic inclusion.
She’s planning a California outdoor wave pool event following November’s world championship “as a proof of concept to show that para surfing can be held in LA in 2028,” Feige said.
“It’s like a football field and a big hydraulic press that creates a surfable wave on demand,” Feige explained. “It’s standardized and they’ve had surfing pro level competitions there before. I’m wondering if it’s an option to make it more cost-effective and logistically easy to incorporate it into the Games.”
Canadian wheelchair rugby co-captain Trevor Hirschfield, who competed in his fifth Paralympics in Paris, gave para surfing a try in 2020 because he wanted an outdoor sport to pursue during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A year later, he was on a board at the world championship in Pismo Beach, California, in the prone 2 division, in which athletes require assistance to catch a wave and get on a board safely.
“I’ve been to Paralympics and world championships before and I thought the world para surf championships were amazing,” Hirschfield said. “California, LA hosting the Games and not picking up para surfing is a big miss on their part.”
___
AP Paralympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paralympic-games
veryGood! (72129)
Related
- Why Suits' Gabriel Macht Needed Time Away From Harvey Specter After Finale
- Apple iPhone from 2007 sells for more than $190,000 at auction
- Barbenheimer opening weekend raked in $235.5 million together — but Barbie box office numbers beat Oppenheimer
- Be the Host With the Most When You Add These 18 Prime Day Home Entertaining Deals to Your Cart
- Taylor Swift Politely Corrects Security’s Etiquette at Travis Kelce’s Chiefs Game
- Illinois Put a Stop to Local Governments’ Ability to Kill Solar and Wind Projects. Will Other Midwestern States Follow?
- ESPYS 2023 Red Carpet Fashion: See Every Look as the Stars Arrive
- Mono Lake Tribe Seeks to Assert Its Water Rights in Call For Emergency Halt of Water Diversions to Los Angeles
- Voyager 2 is the only craft to visit Uranus. Its findings may have misled us for 40 years.
- What Is Permitting Reform? Here’s a Primer on the Drive to Fast Track Energy Projects—Both Clean and Fossil Fuel
Ranking
- Volkswagen, Mazda, Honda, BMW, Porsche among 304k vehicles recalled: Check car recalls here
- Study Documents a Halt to Deforestation in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest After Indigenous Communities Gain Title to Their Territories
- Republicans Propose Nationwide Offshore Wind Ban, Citing Unsubstantiated Links to Whale Deaths
- U.K. leader Rishi Sunak's Conservatives suffer more election losses
- How Saturday Night Live Reacted to Donald Trump’s Win Over Kamala Harris
- In Northern Virginia, a Coming Data Center Boom Sounds a Community Alarm
- How Auditing Giant KPMG Became a Global Sustainability Leader While Serving Companies Accused of Forest Destruction
- New US Car and Truck Emissions Standards Will Make or Break Biden’s Climate Legacy
Recommendation
-
Worker trapped under rubble after construction accident in Kentucky
-
Minnesota Has Passed a Landmark Clean Energy Law. Which State Is Next?
-
Apple iPhone from 2007 sells for more than $190,000 at auction
-
Antarctic Researchers Report an Extraordinary Marine Heatwave That Could Threaten Antarctica’s Ice Shelves
-
Trump pledged to roll back protections for transgender students. They’re flooding crisis hotlines
-
As Russia bombs Ukraine ports and threatens ships, U.S. says Putin using food as a weapon against the world
-
Selena Quintanilla's Husband Chris Perez Reunites With Her Family After Resolving Legal Dispute
-
Can the New High Seas Treaty Help Limit Global Warming?