Melissa Perrine

Melissa Perrine

Perrine in April 2013
Personal information
Nationality	Australia
Born	(1988-02-21) 21 February 1988 Nowra, New South Wales
Sport
Country	Australia
Sport	Para-alpine skiing
Disability class	B2
Event(s)	Downhill Super-G Giant Slalom Slalom Super Combined
Achievements and titles
Paralympic finals	2010 Winter Paralympics 2014 Winter Paralympics
Medal record Women's alpine skiing IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships Silver 2011 Sestriere Women's Downhill VI Bronze 2011 Sestriere Women's Super G Bronze 2011 Sestriere Women's Super Combined Gold 2015 Panorama Women's Downhill Visually Impaired Gold 2015 Panorama Women's Super-G Visually Impaired Gold 2015 Panorama Women's Super Combined Visually Impaired Silver 2015 Panorama Women's Slalom Visually Impaired Bronze 2015 Panorama Women's Giant Slalom Visually Impaired New Zealand Winter Games Gold 2011 Queenstown Giant Slalom Visually Impaired Gold 2011 Queenstown Slalom Visually Impaired Gold 2011 Queenstown Super G Visually Impaired

Melissa Perrine (born 21 February 1988) is a B2 classified visually impaired para-alpine skier from Australia. Since 2009, she has used Andy Bor as her sighted guide. She has competed at the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver and 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi in the downhill, super-G, super combined, slalom and giant slalom events, but did not medal. At the 2015 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships, she won three gold, one silver and one bronze medals.

Personal

Melissa Perrine was born in Nowra, New South Wales, on 21 February 1988.^[1] In 2007, the Wingecarribee Council area named her their Young Australian of the Year.^[2] She was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's X Paralympic Games in March 2010.^[3] She has a vision impairment, with her eyesight slowly deteriorating since she was very young.^[4] Her vision is limited to blurry shapes and colours.^[5] As of 2014, she lives in Welby, New South Wales,^[3][6] and is studying Exercise Science at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney.^[1]

Skiing

Melissa Perrine interview conducted for Wikinews

Melissa Perrine and her guide Andy Bor in the Women's Downhill at the 2014 Winter Paralympics

Perrine is a B2 classified visually impaired skier.^[4][7] She gets direction on the course from a guide who uses a microphone and speakers to communicate with her on the course.^[4] She first skied with her sighted guide Andy Bor in 2009 in competition at the IPC North America Cup in Colorado, where she finished second in the super-G.^[8] She was officially named to the Australian 2010 Winter Paralympics team in November 2009.^[9] Alongside Jessica Gallagher, she was one of two women named to the team. It was the only the second time Australia sent women to the Winter Paralympics.^[9] A ceremony was held in Canberra with Australian Paralympic Committee president Greg Hartung and Minister for Sport Kate Ellis making the announcement.^[10]

At a 2010 World Cup event in Italy ahead of the Paralympics, Perrine fractured the ischium bone in her hip as a result of a fall. She returned to Australia where she was treated at the NSW Institute of Sport by chief physiotherapist Corey Cunningham.^[4] She was back on the slopes by the end of the 2009/2010 skiing season, and competed in the 2010 World Cup in Aspen, Colorado. She earned a silver medal and a pair of bronze medals at the event.^[4]

Perrine and the rest of Australia's para-alpine team arrived in the Paralympic village on 9 March 2010 for the 2010 Winter Paralympics.^[11] While at the Games, she competed in the Downhill, super-G, super combined and giant slalom events.^[2][12] She finished seventh in the visually impaired super-G,^[13] approximately 12.54 seconds behind gold medal winning Slovak skier Henrieta Farkasova. Her poor performance was because she did not follow her guide like she should have.^[14] She did not finish in the super combined event.^[13] Following her first run in the giant slalom, she was in sixth place, but she did not finish her second run and did not place.^[15] She and Bor finished fifth in the 2,139 metres (7,018 ft) long downhill course.^[16]

At the 2011 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships, with Bor as her guide, Perrine won a silver in the vision-impaired downhill event, the first one ever earned by an Australian woman at the event.^[17][18][19] She also earned bronze medals in the women’s vision impaired Super Combined and super-G events.^[19] At an August 2011 competition in Mt Hutt, New Zealand, she finished first in the women's super G visually impaired event.^[20] At the Winter Games IPC event at Coronet Peak that same month, she and Bor finished first in the women's slalom visually impaired event with a time of 1:58.63, about 50 seconds faster than the event's silver medalist Jae Rim Yang skier with Ko Woon Chung as guide.^[5][21][22]

At the 2012 World Cup event in Italy, Perrine finished third in the slalom while skiing with Bor. For her two runs, she had a combined time of 2:11.03, less than a second behind silver medallist Danielle Umstead.^[23] She won a silver medal in the giant slalom, with a combined run time of 2:28.13, ten seconds behind the gold medallist.^[24]

At the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Perrine competed in five events. She finished fourth in the women's downhill visually impaired and did not finish in three events.^[25][26] She was disqualified after the slalom leg of the Women's Super Combined for wearing a visor which was taped to her helmet in order to keep rain from her goggles. This was a breach of the IPC Alpine Skiing rules. Jason Hellwig, CEO of the Australian Paralympic Committee described it as "mindnumbingly-dumb mistake" as it was not picked up by relevant team officials. He indicated it was an honest mistake and there was no intention to cheat.^[27]

Perrine with her guide Andy Bor won five medals - three gold, one silver and one bronze in Women's Visually Impaired events at the 2015 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships in Panorama, Canada.^[28] Gold medals were won in the Downhill, Super-G, Super Combined, silver medal in Slalom and bronze medal in the Giant Slalom. Perrine became the Australian female in alpine skiing to finish on the podium in all five events at an IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships.^[28]

References

External links

• Melissa Perrine Australian Paralympic Committee Athlete Profile
• – Melissa Perrine International Paralympic Committee Alpine Skiing Profile