Christian Geiger
| File:Jessica Gallagher and guide Christian Geiger.jpg
Christian Geiger and Jessica Gallagher in December 2013. The microphones allow them to communicate with each other.
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| Personal information | ||||||||||
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| Full name | Christian Geiger | |||||||||
| Nationality |  Australia |
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| Born | 29 March 1988 | |||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||
| Country | Australia | |||||||||
| Sport | Para-alpine skiing | |||||||||
| Event(s) | Downhill Super-G Giant Slalom Slalom Super Combined |
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Medal record
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Christian Geiger (born 29 March 1988) is an Australian skier and sighted guide for visually impaired skiers. He was Jessica Gallagher's guide skier at the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, winning a bronze medal. He represented Australia at the 2008 World Junior Alpine Skiing Championships and the 2009 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, but his career was cut short when he was severely injured in a traffic collision in 2009. He became Jessica Gallagher's sighted guide in 2013, and guided her to silver medals in women's slalom and giant slalom at the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup in Thredbo.
Contents
Personal
Geiger was born on 29 March 1988 in Australia,[1] but lived in Austria until he was eight.[1] On 26 September 2009, he was involved in a car crash. The vehicle he was travelling in as a passenger slammed into a tree just 30 metres (98 ft) from his family's home in Bright, Victoria.[1][2] He suffered severe injuries to his arm, spleen and liver as well as serious brain trauma.[1][2] As a result, he was in an induced coma for a week. It took months before he could walk, talk and eat independently again.[1] As of August 2011, he had ten operations, extensive physiotherapy and speech therapy.[2]
Skiing
Geiger began skiing at the age of two in Austria,[1] and made the national team in 2006.[3] He won numerous Australian Championships during his teenage years, and represented Australia at the 2008 World Junior Alpine Skiing Championships and the 2009 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.[1] This changed after his 2009 accident. "I tried to get back to able bodied [competition] but couldn't quite get back to where I was, let alone where I wanted to go," he later explained, "so I had to hang it up."[3]
In 2013, Australian Paralympic Alpine Head Coach Steve Graham asked Geiger to replace Eric Bickerton as Jessica Gallagher's sighted guide.[4] In their first competition, the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup in Thredbo, New South Wales, he guided Gallagher to silver medals in women's slalom and giant slalom.[5]
Gallagher gave an insight on taking on Geiger as a guide. She said: <templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Every run that we are spending together at the moment, Christian is learning new things about the way that I ski, about the things that I need to be told when I'm going down the hill in terms of the things that I'm not seeing and also the things that may throw me and really test me as an athlete because at the end of the day his role as a guide is to get me down to the bottom as fast as possible, but also as safe as possible. It just happens with time really.[4]
Geiger was guide to Gallagher at the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi,[6] where they won a bronze medal in the women's giant slalom visually impaired event. They came seventh in the women's slalom visually impaired.[7]
In 2015, he was Head Coach of Australia’s Para-Alpine Skiing program.[8]
References
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External links
- Christian Geiger FIS Results
- Christian Geiger: Days off.. Quick Tour at the Mountain Paralympic Village on YouTube
- Christian Geiger: tractor guiding at the Mountain Village on YouTube
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- Living people
- Alpine skiers at the 2014 Winter Paralympics
- Paralympic alpine skiers of Australia
- Australian male alpine skiers
- 1988 births
- Paralympic bronze medalists for Australia
- Medalists at the 2014 Winter Paralympics
