ISA World Adaptive Surfing Championship bronze medalist Freddy Marimón Blanco will travel this year to train in the snow of Colorado, United States, with a view to beginning preparations for the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Games, the president of the Colombian Surfing Federation, Andrés Porras, informed DUKE.

"With the news that surfing was not included in the Paris 2024 Paralympics, we decided that the quickest way for Freddy to become an Olympian is the Beijing 2022 Winter Games. We know that the ISA will soon take us to the Summer Paralympics, but for now we will try it in the snow and get out of our comfort zone a little," Porras told DUKE.

The surfer will maintain his international surfing competition schedule, but will also add his training for the snow at the Colorado Winter Sports Center. They still don't know for sure which competition they will try, but one of the possibilities being considered is downhill sitting, in which the skier rides a snowboard at about 100 kilometers per hour..

If he qualifies, Freddy would become the first Colombian in history to compete in the aforementioned games. And he would do so at the age of 16, competing at 17, since he is now 13.

The project has the support of the Ministry of Tourism of Colombia, the State of Bolivar and the Secretariat of Sports, Coldeportes. "Freddy will take the message of the beauty of our beaches and the quality of its waves to all corners of the world. He is a worthy representative of our culture and we know that he will represent us with dignity," said Sandra Howard, Vice Minister of Tourism, in reference to Freddy's plans for 2018, which will also include the US Open adapted in Huntington Beach, California; the South American adapted surfing in Mar del Plata, Argentina and finally the ISA world championship in La Jolla, California.

"The governor of the state of Bolívar, Dumek Turbay, once he learned of the plans to begin winter testing, allocated everything necessary to carry out our plans, since as he himself said 'Freddy is a person capable of materializing unthinkable actions,'" Andrés Porras told DUKE.

"Freddy is excited," Ilsy Blanco, the mother of the Olympic hopeful, added. "We are going to do it because he wants to, he wants to live this new experience and I know he will do very well," she added. Asked if she was afraid of taking on this new sport, she replied: "A little, but you have to experiment, if it is God's will, you do it."

Freddy Marimón was born with a congenital malformation, without legs or an arm. With one, he was fifth in an ISA world championship and bronze medalist in the last edition. He glides through the waves with grace and ease, performing one radical maneuver after another.