About Me
Name: Claudia Loesch
Date of Birth: 19.10.1988
Age: 24
Residence: Innsbruck, Tyrol
Disability: Paraplegia since 1994, car accident
Competing in: Alpine Skiing, Women sitting, LW 11, all disciplines (SL, GS, SG, DH SC)
Best results: 5 Paralympic medals (2 Gold, 1 Silver, 2 Bronze)
2 Overall World Cup Victories
7 Silver & 2 Bronze Medals in World Championships
I was born in Vienna in 1988. At the age of 5, I was involved in a car accident, from which I suffered paraplegia. In 1996, the Alpine Skiing World Championships for the Disabled took place in Austria and I saw a report about it on TV. I was so fascinated that I urged my parents to let me attend a course in sitskiing, which I finally did about two years later. The teachers there were race skiers themselves (Andreas Schiestl, Gerda Pamler) and as I proved pretty talented from the beginning on, I started race skiing on a national level in the 1999/2000 season, which turned out to be quite successful.
In the 2002/03 season, aged 14, I first participated in several European Cup Races and even managed to win some, finally finishing second in the overall. I also had my debut in World Cup Races but the results were not entirely satisfying, so I spent the rest of the season in EC. Nevertheless, a year later (2004) I already made it to the World Championships in Wildschönau, finishing 4th in Downhill and 5th in Super-G. The first major medal I took home was Bronze in the Torino 2006 PWG Downhill. In July 2007, I also took my Matura and then moved to Innsbruck, Tyrol, in order to have better training facilities and to study Political Science and Law at Innsbruck University.
The next four years should prove to be a steep way up, winning my first WC Race in 2007, my first “small globe” (Super-G Overall WC) in 2008 and the “The Big One” (i.e. Overall WC) in 2009 and 2010 as well as four medals in the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games.
Since 2012, I also work for the ORF, presenting the magazine “Ohne Grenzen” (“Without Borders”).
