Activities accessible to all Grand Massif skiers

She descends the tracks of Flaine (Haute-Savoie) smile on his lips and arms raised to signify her pleasure of being there. Despite the cold and the snow that brings his face, also despite the handicap. “Inès has had a problem at birth and, since then, she has suffered from a cerebral engine handicap,” explains Eric Chometon, her father. The 26 -year -old woman has great difficulty standing and cannot walk alone. However, she has skied since her childhood!

Today, she practices with Pierre, instructor of the French ski school (ESF), at the controls of a tandem’flex. The device is a bucket chair with shock absorbers, mounted on a pair of skis and led by a person located at the rear on them.

“It’s going quickly and we feel all the movements on the ground, I like it a lot,” she enthuses. “When she was little, I led her chair myself. She always wanted to go faster, ”recalls her father. Today, Éric Chometon is no longer capable of physically. Using an instructor allows him to fully enjoy an afternoon of skiing with her other daughter, Adèle.

Large curves, tight turns, powder, ski lifts … Thanks to the tandem’flex, inès and its Pierre monitor pass almost everywhere, like any skier. Not easy to follow the young woman for her father and sister!

The whole massif is equipped

“I attended a week of training in the tandem’flex driving a decade ago,” says Pierre. Today, at the ESF of Flaine, we are a dozen monitors trained in various devices which allow people with a disability of standing or seated skier, in complete autonomy or accompanied. »»

More than Flaine, it is a whole mountain that adapts: the stations belonging to the large massif (Flaine, the Carroz, Morillon, Samoëns and Sixt Horse Horse) offer disabled activities and favored access for people with reduced mobility (PMR access). All the staff of the ski lifts also know the equipment and help skiers and their guides when it comes to getting into a cable car or taking a chairlift.

And there is permanently on the ski area at least a call tracker, formed to be able to take over if necessary. “It is very secure to know that all the professionals around us are made aware of the Handiski and know the equipment we use,” says Pierre. Each year, the staff of the Grand Massif stations even organize a common meeting on this theme to share the return of experiences and initiatives to come.

A first handineige festival in 2024

Since 2003, around a thousand monitors- out of 17,000 in total- have been trained in supporting people with disabilities by the ESF itself. “This mainly concerns skiing in tandem because this is where we have the most requests, but they are also trained in the teaching of autonomy, sitting or standing ski,” explains Nicolas Sauvage, technical director of ESF .

And this number increases exponentially since in 2024, they were around 120 new trained professionals. More and more stations in France are offering Handiski activities. “The main obstacle to their development comes from the public with disabilities itself, which does not project itself into such an outdoor sports practice,” regrets Nicolas Sauvage. To counter this inhibition, a first Handineige festival was organized in March 2024 by the Federation, with the presence of numerous high-level athletes, and a second edition is already scheduled for 2027.

“The Olympic Games of Paris have put a spotlight on the handisport practice. We hope that it will also be the case with the Winter Olympics in the French Alps in 2030, ”comments Nicolas Sauvage. As for Inès, she intends to continue skiing, while preparing a law thesis on the theme of handicap at birth. She also develops her glamorous association within range, the objective of which is “to change the people’s gaze on disability and make it more glamorous. »A challenge that she takes up everything Schuss!