He’s 52, he made his Paralympic debut in 1988, and he’s back for one more ride

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — “I thought it might be fun. I’m not sure I was right.”

The Australian Alpine skier Michael Milton is explaining why, aged 52, he is competing in Italy, his sixth Winter Games.

Milton, who had his left leg amputated because of bone cancer aged 9, made his debut as a teenager at the 1988 Innsbruck Games in Austria. During his peak, between 1992 and 2006, he won 11 medals, six of those gold — including all four men’s Alpine golds at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games: downhill, super-G, slalom and giant slalom.

“That (1988) was a whole different world through to 2006, and now to come back 20 years later, there’s definitely things that have changed,” he said at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre, where he competed in the men’s Alpine combined and super-G standing this week. “We see some really good skiers. That top echelon of the top 10 is really impressive.

“The formality of the Games, the professionalism of the organizers, all of that has stepped up. Certainly, the Australian team has more staff than we used to.

“I’m yet to work out if that’s good or bad,” he added, laughing.

Milton did not take it easy after initially retiring from skiing following the 2006 Turin Games. Two years later, he was in Beijing competing in the 60.5 km Paralympic cycling road race in the Summer Olympics. Twice, he’s represented his country at the World Paratriathlon Championships. He’s also reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and is a multiple world record-holder: for the fastest ever marathon on crutches and skiing at 132 mph — the highest speed ever recorded on one leg and an outright Australian record.

At the Melbourne Cricket Ground, one of the world’s most prestigious cricketing arenas, his name is in Australia’s sports Hall of Fame.

He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2006 and bowel cancer in 2023 and recovered from both. “I like to challenge myself. I don’t know where my limits are,” he said.

Milton recalled a conversation with his wife, Penni, when he first suggested competing at these Paralympics. “She laughed, said, ‘Yeah, good joke,’ walked away, and then I had to bring it up again the next day. I’d been thinking about this for a bit.”

The seed had been sown a week earlier, when he was working at the Thredbo ski resort in New South Wales, where he helped organize ski races and participated in one.

“The idea (of the 2026 Games) just stuck in my head. I went to bed, I’d been up since 5 a.m., and I couldn’t get to sleep. I got my phone out, started reading selection criteria and equipment rules and times. ‘What do I need to do to try and qualify?'”

Milton, who says he is not an adrenaline junkie but someone who can control his fear, picks out two moments in his career when he was most nervous. The first was when he first tried to ski at high speed, at 124 mph, and an accident to another skier required him to attempt to refocus after a long delay.

“The guy in front of me fell,” he recalled. “It was an hour by the time the chopper came in. I was stood at the top and could see it all in the distance. Then the light went flat in the race. I couldn’t see, and it was really intense, particularly after I got myself ready and peaked mentally to then relax for an hour. With the second (mental) peak, you can never get it quite right.”

The second moment? “Monday,” he said, referring to the super-G final. The buildup to the Games had been particularly challenging after he fractured the femur in his stump four weeks ago, putting his participation in doubt at one stage.

“That (fracture) plays in my mind,” he said. “With limited training, awful preparation. I really don’t want to fall over on it.

“When you’re skiing, if it’s easy (circumstances), you can start looking for that perfection. As things get tougher, whether it be snow, weather, hills, mental challenges or injury, then you’ve kind of got to be a bit more forgiving of yourself to say, ‘Hey, I’m not going to ski this perfectly. It’s going to be rough.'”

In his comeback race, he finished 23rd of 26. His time of 1 minute, 21.98 seconds was almost 10 seconds slower than that of gold medallist Robin Cuche of Switzerland. In the immediate aftermath, he said he was proud of his effort but called his skiing “pathetic.”

Things went better in the super combined, in which athletes race the super-G and slalom and the fastest total time wins. He was the second-last to go of the 26 athletes in the super-G portion. The nerves and negative thoughts, he said, came again.

Overcast skies made for a cool morning and icy slopes on Tofane, replacing the sunshine and sloshier snow that had greeted the first two medal days of the Alpine events. Nine of the 26 standing men’s skiers did not finish in super-G, either missing one of the 37 gates or crashing out.

Milton managed the course well, ranking 13th. He did not match the medal contenders’ top speeds — or his own at his record-breaking peak — but his technique was clean as he navigated the gates. In the slalom run, when gold medal favorite Aleksei Bugaev of Russia fell and Frenchman Jules Segers, another podium hopeful, did not finish, Milton was clean, coming 14th.

There are constant reminders for Milton that he has spent two decades away from his sport’s biggest stage. He is skiing against athletes who were not born when he made his Paralympic debut. The only Alpine skier older than the Australian is 53-year-old South Korean Lee Hwan Kyung, who competes in the sitting classification.

“I got a few text messages on Monday night from former competitors going, ‘What the f— are you doing?’

“One of my old German competitors apparently still has my number from 20 years ago. He threw me a text to see if I’ve still got (the same number), and I responded. He shared some other contacts, and we created a little old-timers group.”

As Milton recounts those conversations with his old foes, he realizes his Garmin watch is still running. He pauses it, and a review screen pops up, which asks him to pick one of five smiley faces to reflect how the race felt. Five is the best (very happy), one is the worst (very sad). Milton picks the middle option — content but not quite satisfied.

“To me, the hard road is often the best road because the easy (option) is just hanging around doing nothing,” he said, smiling.

“I like to get out there and do things, and I’m sure that will continue for a little while yet, after this whole circus is over.”

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