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FEATURED REGATTAS: September 16, 2008 Sven Reiger, Helmut Seewald and Eddie Rath have been sailing together as a tame since November 2007. All of them competed in the 2007 IFDS World Championship in Rochester, New York, but they were part of two separate Austrian Sonar teams.
By finishing 19th at the 2007 IFDS World Championship Regatta, Reiger won the right to steer the Austrian Sonar at the 2008 Paralympics in Qingdao, but changing one crew member meant changing both crew members because of the disability point classification system.
Reiger recruited Rath and Seewald and the team has had better results with each and every regatta that they have sailed since coming together as a team.
Reiger’s Paralympic background is in Athletics. He ran the 100 and 200-metre individual events and his Silver medal was in the 4 x 100 relay in Atlanta. Reiger came up through the Austrian junior sailing program and started sailing Optimists when he was young. He is a sailing coach for the disabled.
Rath lost his sight when a self-made bomb, made to celebrate a wedding tradition in Austria, detonated prematurely. “At first I tried surfing, but my balance wasn’t good enough, so they recommended sailing,” jokes Rath. “No risk. No fun.”
The Blind Sports Association in Austria started a new project and connected Reiger and Rath.
When Rath called Reiger and asked if he could help out with the sailing program, Reiger suggest that Rath meet him at the World Sailing Games about two and a half years and said, “Let’s have a look.” (Reiger’s pun was intentional.)
Seewald, who was disabled when he was nine with an aggressive form of Purpura Fulminans, was he skipper of the other Austrian Sonar at the 2007 IFDS World Championship. It did not take Seewald long to adjust to being a main sheet trimmer.
The team has been training in sailing school skiffs and in their Sonar in Austria, but did not have enough funding to travel to many foreign regattas this year, but they did finish 5th in Heyers and 10th at the Test Event in Qingdao in May.
Said Rath, “We are not the fastest, but we’re the funnest (sic) and we are the most relaxed.”
They are grateful for the assistance that the Disabled Federation and their coach, Fred Sulek, provide them.
More than what was published in the original article –
Rath practices bio-resonance. While he did not bring his equipment with him to China, he did speak to some of the other Paralympians with degenerative conditions and other muscular conditions about bio-resonance treatments and practitioners and facilities in their areas of the world.
The team never missed a good time in Qingdao. They had seats at the front table during the opening night of the Beer Festival of the most handicapped accessible building within walking distance of the Olympic Sailing Venue, the Crowne Plaza hotel. They were friendly, helpful, jovial and had some showings near the front of the fleet. There is no question that they made the most of their Paralympic experience.
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