23 Jul Owen PICK, RED BULL’S BIONIC-BOARDER , Born to Ride !
Owen Pick, RED BULL’S BIONIC-BOARDER Born to Ride !
Team GB Paralympic athlete prepares of Liverpool Albert Dock’s Red Bull Harbour Reach 2015
Owen Pick, 23, was just 18-years-old when his leg was blown off by an IED on his first tour in Afghanistan.
Keen to get his life back on track the teen rehabilitated through exercise and physical rehab, and soon found himself to be somewhat a pro when it came to board sports.
Now on the road to representing Team GB in the adaptive snowboardercross in the 2018 Winter Paralympics, Pick hopes to show off further skills at this years Liverpool Albert Dock’s Red Bull Harbour Reach competition on Saturday. (July 25)
Pick, from Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk, said: “Of course I’ve had bad days, I’ve had difficult times when it comes to my leg – I was very young when the accident happened and that was the end of my army career.
“But at the end of the day as one door closed another one opened. The choice was made for me and I had to get on with it, I had to keep living. I try and stay positive and see how much I gained from my loss.
“I can either sit and mope – be upset about it, be depressed and do nothing about it – or I look at it and think, ‘I’ve got a new toy here – what can I do with it? How far can I push the limits?
“How many people are going to tell me I can’t do it and how many times am I going to prove them wrong?’ That’s my way of everyday going, ‘it’s not that bad’.
“In a funny way it seems like there has been a positive outcome from your accident. I would say it has 100 per cent It changed my life for the better. I will always, always say that.”
Inspirational Pick, who trained as a private in ITC Catterick when he was 16, had never even stood on wakeboard before his fatal accident.
Now with he help of a prosthetic limb, he is able to perform world-class tricks and stunts in competitions across the world as well as teaching others to learn the sport during the summer season.
Using his prosthetic limbo allow him to board, Pick has to to but a plastic bag over it so it slides easily, to stop the rubber sticking on the neoprene.
Then he uses two big sleeves that go over the prosthetic and use tape to protect the valve so that water doesn’t get in.
He added: “Prior to being blown up I’d never done any board sport in my life other than standing on my mate’s skateboard and falling off a lot.
“After getting injured I had to go through rehab. I didn’t know what I was doing with my life at that point – then I got into wakeboarding. I was taken down to a lake as an activity.
“I started doing a sit down water ski then I saw wakeboarding going on and thought it looked really cool.
“That summer I went to the lake a lot and worked at Hannam’s Wake Hub, coaching other disabled guys. Wakeboarding became something I loved doing.
Pick who has snowboarded at the X Games and is currently 7th in the world for adaptive snowboarding.
The wakeboarder is looking forward competing alongside and in front of Red Bull wake boarding pros, such as Parks Bonifay, this weekend in Liverpool.
See Owen Pick At the Harbour Reach this week end july 25th , 14:00 to 18:00 , albert Dock , LIVERPOOL
More information about Liverpool wake park : www.liverpoolwakepark.co.uk
More information about the Harbour Reach and REDBULL: redbull.com/red-bull-harbour-reach-2015