Paralympian Sean Pollard saw snow for the first time when he went with friends on a trip to Mt Buller in 2015.
Soon afterwards, on a trip to Canada, the formerly keen surfer showed immediate affinity for snowboarding. He “bumped into” the Canadian Para-snowboard coach during the trip, who encouraged him to investigate competing in Australia. Sean emailed Paralympics Australia and within a few weeks was at a training camp at Perisher.
Sean’s progress was swift. In his first international season, he secured encouraging results in snowboard cross and banked slalom and was included in the Australian Paralympic Team for the 2018 Games in PyeongChang. There, he came fifth in the banked slalom and ninth in snowboard cross.
Sean took a break from competing a year or so after the Paralympics and became a father in 2021. He has since returned to intense training in an attempt to qualify for Milano Cortina.
Competing at his second Paralympic Games would be the next phase of a remarkable journey. After moving to WA’s south-west coast with his mum and two younger brothers as a young teenager, Sean spent countless hours surfing the famous breaks around Margaret River.
He became an apprentice electrician at age 16, using his earnings to fund surfing trips to Morocco, Portugal, Indonesia and elsewhere. He speaks Indonesian, having studied it at school and travelling there several times.
Things took a life-changing turn in October 2014 when, on a surfing trip to Esperance in WA with his partner Claire, Sean was bitten by two sharks, one taking his left arm, the other his right hand. Somehow, Sean returned to shore where Claire and some beachgoers kept him alive until he could be taken to hospital in Perth, where he underwent major surgery.
Sean returned home to Bunbury after about six weeks and continued extensive therapy, including physiotherapy to return full functionality to his legs, which had suffered deep lacerations during the incident.
Sean tried to return to surfing, but soon discovered a love for snowboarding, putting him on a new and exciting pathway.
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