Para Nordic athletes heading to Beijing with custom sit-skis
The UK’s Para Nordic squad will be heading to the Paralympic Games in Beijing next year with bespoke sit-skis designed and manufactured in the UK.
The sit-ski development was led by Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) and included input from the athletes, GB Snowsport, Coventry University, BAE Systems and Formaplex.
Ryan Allen, a systems engineer at BAE Systems, said the sit-skis were made of a mixture of carbon fibre ply with a foam core and were chosen for their high relative strength, durability and low weight.
“We learned a lot from two early prototypes made by WAE, which helped guide the material selection,” he said.
Two apprentices at BAE Systems worked on the project, overseen by team leader Richard Swain. They worked with Formaplex, using their tooling to manufacture the seats for each sit-ski. Once the seats had been manufactured, they were delivered to WAE to complete the tailored fitting.
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