“Ten times more strenuous”
Paralympic winter athlete shows strange training
March 5, 2026 – 9:37 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
Athletes from all over the world are represented at the Paralympic Winter Games. A participant from El Salvador shows his special training.
After the Olympics is before the Olympics, because the Winter Olympics are followed by the Paralympic Winter Games in Milan and Cortina. From March 6th to 15th, 612 athletes from 56 nations will compete against each other. David Chavez is the first athlete from El Salvador to take part.
Chavez is a cross-country skier and will compete in a race for the first time in 2023. In his homeland he has to deal with the particular challenge of hardly finding any snow. The athlete therefore only partially trains under competition conditions. In El Salvador he also prepares on the beach.
With powerful use of his arms, Chavez pushes himself across the sand, as he shows in an Instagram video. “The sand sticks to the skis, which makes movement difficult,” the winter athlete reported in an interview with “paralympic.org” about his sessions at Playa El Cocal in the town of La Libertad.
“This is pure strength training,” he explained. His trainer Rob Powers estimates the strain as “ten times more strenuous” and added: “We drink a lot of coconut water, Salvadoran coffee and ski on the beach. That’s our secret.”
For Chavez, taking part in the Olympics is a dream come true; he would have liked to have been there in Tokyo. Despite the anticipation, the athlete from El Salvador was also “very excited”.
The winter sports athlete has been paralyzed since he was involved in a shooting during a robbery eleven years ago. A bullet severed part of his spine. Since then he has been active in several sports: basketball, surfing and climbing are on Chavez’s list. He will now make history as a skier.
