Fuelled By The Love Of Their Families, Snowboard Dads Perform Well In Final Event

The two dads on the Australian Para snowboard team have finished their Games campaigns feeling proud of their performances and motivated for the future.

Australian Paralympic Team captain Sean Pollard came 12th out of 21 riders in the SB-UL banked slalom and Aaron McCarthy came 13th out of 18 in the SB-LL1, bringing to an end a years-long goal to compete at Milano Cortina and add to Australia’s growing tradition in Para snowboarding.

Supported by the young families who made the trip to Italy, Pollard returned to Paralympic snowboarding after initially competing at PyeongChang 2018, while McCarthy made his Paralympic debut after picking up the sport in 2022.

Pollard, whose best time was 1:01.74, said he was happy to put down two clean runs.

“I was happy to put down two pretty clean runs. I was within four one-hundredths of a second between my first and second, so you can say I’m consistent,” he said.

“I was pushing for (the top 10) and I felt like my second run was faster. I’ll probably watch the video and try and figure out where I went wrong. But overall, it’s been a good day.

“I felt like I’d put my best effort down, so I’m happy with that.”

Pollard said competing at the Games in front of his family had been a great experience.

Asked whether he would aim to compete at the 2030 Paralympics, he said: “I’m going to keep snowboarding either way because I love snowboarding. My plan was to do as much of that as I could, whether it’s in a competition jersey or not. I want to snowboard until I’m 80.”

McCarthy, meanwhile, was also happy with his “couple of solid runs”. He clocked a best time of 1:11.80, improving his first run time of 1:13.38.

“The first run was still a bit icy from the freeze overnight, but I just wanted to come out and put down a better time and see if I could improve my position so I’m really happy with how it went,” he said.

“I’m pretty ecstatic that I’m here and being able to represent Australia in the Winter Paralympics. It’s such an unreal experience and really grateful for all the support I’ve had from back home and here. It’s just an awesome experience and I’m really grateful for it.”

McCarthy said he was excited to return home and “share my experience with a lot of people”, including a couple of schools visits that have been organised.

His intention at this point is to push towards the 2030 Games.

“That’s the plan at the moment,” he said.  

“We’ll see where life takes us in the next four years, I’ve got a young family at home, so we’ll see what happens but at the moment that’s the plan.”

David Sygall, Paralympics Australia