Ran on 3/8/2013 on the UW-Madison College of Engineering news site
Back in 2005, “sit-skis” for disabled cross-country skiers were expensive, uncomfortable and largely unavailable—except to a handful of Paralympic athletes.
Today, more than 300 sitting-position skis enable a much wider group of people with lower-body limitations to participate in the popular winter sport. In addition to an adaptable, user-friendly design, these skis also come with an accessible price tag: Each sit-ski costs only about $250 to manufacture, rather than $2,500 for the old, custom-built versions for elite athletes.
And now, many of these skis reside at state and city parks, where visitors can borrow them at their leisure, or in adaptive exercise programs, which teach beginners how to sit-ski, using upper body strength alone to propel themselves.
This burgeoning quantity of sit skis began with a big idea hatched through a partnership among Madison, Wisconsin disability rights attorney Don Becker, Jay Martin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of mechanical engineering and an expert on assistive technologies, and a few Madison-area companies…
Christie Taylor 