Believe - Melissa Perrine, Para-alpine Skiing (APC)

Video courtesy of the Australian Paralympic Committee.

Melissa Perrine
Para-Alpine Skiing

The key thing you've got to remember going into a big event like this is to just keep doing what you've been doing
for the four years interim.

You know the sport doesn't change just because the Paralympics the stakes are higher, but the job's the same.

I'm a visually impaired athlete and my classification's B2 - which means I have less than 5% of my vision overall and so in order to ski down a hill or in a race course I need a guide and we communicate via a Bluetooth headset where we have microphones and
speakers in our helmets.

I started skiing when I was about 12 years old with disabled winter sports Australia. Then I was about 19 when I went over and did a
couple of seasons in Canada before the Australian team picked me up in 2009. It was all a bit of a whirlwind actually. I didn't really know what to expect.

I managed to qualify for World Cup and the Paralympic Games in our first race series and then it all just kind of snowballed from there.

[TV-commentator voice-over] Melissa Perrine, she looks tense she looks focussed. She'll be travelling at well over 100km/h, she knows what she has to do.

[Melissa Perrine]
A good guide is able to be really consistent regardless of what's going on. They need to be considerate and but also be able to push them and challenge them and there needs to be a lot of trust between us as.

Christian Geiger
Melissa's coach and sighted guide

As a visually impaired athlete, is important for her to map out the run in her head before she skis down. And so that's done with myself as a guide and coach, and her. She is very relaxed when she skis behind me and we can really push the limits of what she
can and can't do.

Having that successs now has the belief in herself to win medals. Potentially, hopefully a few gold and she believes in what we've been doing and believes in herself now. She knows she can push the limits, but we're there to win and she wants to win.

[Melissa Perrine]
I just really want to put together a good competition. I've really been trying to deliver really consistent performances these last four years and I want to take that all the way through to PyeongChang.

Believe in us, and together we are invincible.