Hall or nothing

Adam Hall is on top of the world after dramatically winning the standup slalom skiing gold at the Winter Paralympics but it's been one heck of a battle to get there for the disabled and inspirational Otago athlete, as Daryl Holden explains.

Crippled legs.

Read it and say it out loud.

Horrible, isn't it?

Now imagine you're a young, sensitive disabled boy, and you're called that, and probably much worse, at school most days.

Welcome to life early on for Outram's Adam Hall, who has a terrible wobbling gait and legs that look like they're going to snap, so weird are the angles they land at when he walks.

Hall was born with spina bifida, a disability that involves the incomplete development of the spinal cord and resulted in him having numerous operations as a child, but in a way he's lucky.

Most people with spina bifida are wheelchair-bound and some don't live long.

Hall doesn't need to be reminded of that so he lives every day to the max and he never makes excuses.

He's the son of a Taieri dairy farmer and discovered early on what hard work was. And he quickly learned how to stand up for himself, which explains his initial response to the nasty teasing and bullying at primary school.

"I used to get really angry about it," he remembers.

"I tried to sort it out with my fists and I used to get into fights all the time.

"But I knew that wasn't the way. I was told if I was to keep on getting into fights it could one day land me in great trouble and I also might end up being hurt."

Eventually, Hall curbed his aggression and ignored the name calling, and the looks and sniggers, and used it as motivation to prove them all wrong.

Now he's done that big time.

The 22-year-old is a Winter Paralympic gold medal skiing champion, having won his specialty standup giant slalom event in stirring fashion in Vancouver, Canada, this week.

He's New Zealand's first Winter Paralympic medallist for eight years but he's not enjoying the final laugh. That's not his style.

"Some of those guys who used to bully me at school are actually my best mates," explains Hall, who switched from snowboarding to skiing fulltime in 2004, with qualifying for the Paralympics his aim.

"They've seen what I can do and what I've become. There's respect there now and to me, that means so much. You can't beat respect."

He's certainly earned respect because no-one really knows how hard it is to overcome adversity more than disabled individuals like Hall.

And at Whistler, on Tuesday, Hall did just that in the most dramatic way, showing just how much he had learned from his first Winter Paralympics in Turin four years ago and how far he had come since 2006 when he finished 49th while still at Taieri High School.

But it was a gold medal triumph that probably nearly caused a heart attack for his grandfather, who had travelled from Dunedin to cheer him on.

His mother, who was also in the crowed, reckoned she stopped breathing halfway through the second run when her boy crashed, seemingly out of contention.

Hall somehow clawed himself up, as he has done for much of his life, got to the finish, spun around and glanced up at the results board.

And then it hit him. He threw his arms in the air, collapsed on the powder, knowing he had hung on to win gold, with his total time over the two runs edging out German Gerad Schonfelder by just 0.57sec.

"It's been a 15-year dream to come here and win a gold medal. To come here and do it is unbelievable."

And it will seem unbelievable to many because Hall's disability means he has no feeling in the lower half of his legs and no sensation in his feet.

That he can ski at all, let alone to an international level where he hits speeds of up 120kmh, placing unbelievable stress on limbs already under pressure, continues to stun medics.

His skis are connected with a rope to keep his tips aligned because he doesn't have the muscles to keep his legs parallel and he uses ski pole outriggers to help his balance but don't ever go showing him pity.

Gayle Hall says her son doesn't see himself as disabled or disadvantaged in any way.

"He just sees himself like everyone else," she says.

"He's just like any athlete, who has to work hard to achieve his goals."

But what keeps someone like Hall going?

Why hasn't he felt cheated and angry with his lot for drawing a rotten short straw at birth, leaving him with a disability that makes walking painful and awkward, and makes some people stare, point and even laugh at him?

"I'll tell you what it is," Mrs Hall continues.

"It's his upbringing, and his self-esteem has always been maintained at a really high level. He doesn't feel bad about himself and that's what keeps him going."

There's no doubting his self-esteem.

When you get past the initial shock of noticing that awkward, pained walking style, and you look into his focused eyes and slightly intimidating glare, "disabled" is not a word that springs to mind.

Try powerful. Try confident. Try defiant. Try strong.

They all come much easier.

"I actually feel proud of my disability," says Hall, his warm smile and impressive upper-body physique also hitting you.

"It's my uniform.

"It's my badge. It's who I am.

"I know people look at me and look at how I walk and they probably think, `he can't ski. He's disabled'.

"Well, put them on a pair of skis right next to me and they will soon find out that they are the ones with a disability."

If his disability defines him and then so, too, does his determination and commitment.

Hall hasn't had a Christmas at home for six years because he's been away training and competing in the northern hemisphere usually by himself. He's got a trophy cabinet bulging with medals, silverware and accolades, including being named New Zealand's Snowsports Athlete of the Year for the past two years.

Terms like fatigue, rest and rotation and sabbatical may be common place among some of our highly paid, precious rugby stars, but they don't cut it with Hall, who also has a freakish ability to endure pain and just keep on going.

He shouldn't be walking around, let alone skiing. Why? Some time ago he ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, the ligament you need to keep your knee stable.

He remembers "tweaking" it in a World Cup race – and how did he deal with it?

"I ended up using duct tape to strap it up so I could keep skiing through the season."

Duct tape, for goodness sake.

He's avoided surgery because it would probably keep him sidelined for up to a year, and he still uses tape to hold it together.

"But it still pops out all the time."

Hall also recalls suffering what he called a "nasty stomach bug" at the end of the 2007 northern hemisphere season. But X-rays revealed much worse. He had a 4cm stone stuck in his bladder.

"I should've known it was something like that because I could feel something big in my bladder, bouncing around when I was training and skiing. I was peeing blood all of the time, too.

"But you learn to deal with these sorts of things. I don't believe in making excuses. I just get on with life."

And, oh, how Adam Hall has done that.

His Paralympic gold medal may have thrust him into New Zealand's sporting conscience but it's about much more than winning.

This is about someone proving once and for all to himself – and to the wider public – that he's not simply a person with a disability. He's an elite athlete to be admired and respected for the work he's put in and the skills he's honed.

Adam Hall always stresses that he's never wanted sympathy but high up on Whistler Mountain, as he surged to a famous gold medal, perhaps his opponents, ironically, asked for a bit of it themselves from old "Crippled Legs".

- © Fairfax NZ News