Snowboarders zipped down the slope in Sochi Friday as the sport was featured for the first time at a Winter Paralympic Games, uniting amputees, cancer survivors and athletes with cerebral palsy all sharing a love for powder.
Netherlands' Lisa Bunschoten crashes while competing during the Women's Para Snowboard Cross - Standing (PSL) event during the Sochi Paralympics at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center on March 14, 2014
History was made by first gold medallists Evan Strong of the US and Bibian Mentel-Spee of the Netherlands, who were the fastest down the challenging snowboard cross course.
An accomplished snowboarder who was on her way to qualify for Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games, Mentel-Spee was diagnosed with bone cancer at 27. She ended up losing her leg in a battle with the disease and became one of the advocates of paralympic sports.
On Friday, the 41-year-old was beaming, and said her goal in Sochi was never a medal.
"My journey to get snowboard to the Paralympics was never about winning a gold medal, it was to showcase our sport and to show the kids out there with a physical disability that a sport like snowboarding really can be done as well," she said.
For her, the transition didn't even make much of a difference, she said. "It was just about finding your balance again," she said of restarting the sport after losing her leg.
-'It's about strategy'-
Unlike other alpine events which class athletes by the extent of their impairment, adjusting for time, snowboarders faced the slope as equals.
That meant that athletes missing two limbs would have to race as fast as those missing just one, for example.
"It is what it is, it's made us work even harder," said Amy Purdy, 34, who had both of her legs amputated below the knees after a bout of bacterial meningitis at 19 that almost killed her, and went on to be a huge advocate for the sport as well as an actress and dance show competitor.
"Today my legs played a huge role," she said, admitting that she was more careful than usual on the steep and icy run.
"It's not all about our legs, it's about strategy," she said after getting a bronze medal.
"In the future they will probably come up with a classification, but we all were aware of what we were getting ourselves into this year."
"I've never been coached until this year, so we're excited to have this debut and then preparing for 2018," she added.
The International Paralympic Committee is already working on developing snowboarding further, said spokeswoman Lucy Dominy.
"This includes developing a factoring system following the conclusion of a research project currently being carried out," she told AFP.
The course proved tricky for a few competitors, with several falling right before or at the finish line, and home favourite Igor Ivanov actually crawling over it on his hands to finish as the Russian fans in the stands cheered him on.
Ben Tudhope of Australia was dealing with another challenge - his size. The 14-year-old snowboarder is the youngest athlete at the Sochi Paralympics and was half the size of other snowboarders on the mountain.
Ben also has cerebral palsy hemiplegia which leaves his left side partially paralysed.
"Being so young at the Games feels great!" he said. "Hopefully I'll be going to a lot more Games and get way better!"