Amy Purdy

Amy Purdy
Full name	Amelia Michelle Purdy
nation	United States
birthday	7th November 1979 (age 40)
place of birth	Las Vegas , United States
Career
discipline	Snowboard cross, banked slalom
society	Adaptive action sports
status	active
Medal table
Winter Paralympics 0 × 1 × 2 ×
Winter Paralympics bronze Sochi 2014 Snowboard cross silver Pyeongchang 2018 Snowboard cross bronze Pyeongchang 2018 Banked slalom

Amelia Michelle Purdy , better known as Amy Purdy (born on 7. November 1979 in Las Vegas ), is an American Para - snowboarder , as a result of meningitis lost both legs at the age of 19 years. She became a Paralympic bronze medalist at the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games , a silver medalist at the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games, and is a co-founder of Adaptive Action Sports .

She is also active as an actress , model , motivational speaker, clothing designer and author. In 2014 she published her autobiography , On My Own Two Feet: From Losing My Legs to Learning the Dance of Life. She received special attention in the American TV show Dancing with the Stars , in which she was the first double-amputee participant to reach the final over several rounds and came second.

life and career

Amy Purdy was born in Las Vegas in 1979 and was a keen snowboarder even as a teenager. She went to the University of Utah , where she trained as a massage therapist, which she finished in 1999 and with which she wanted to start her professional life with a position at Canyon Ranch Spa. Shortly afterwards, she developed bacterial meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis , which led to a collapse and a coma . The infection affected her circulation and led to septic shock , her both legs were amputated below the knee in the result because of the lack of blood supply and they both kidneys and the spleen lost. The doctors rated her chances of survival at 2%, and two years after the operation she received a donor kidney from her father .

Career as an athlete

Seven months after receiving her prosthetic legs, Purdy began snowboarding, and about a year after the leg amputation, she finished third in a snowboard competition on Mammoth Mountain . She then received a grant from the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), a non-profit organization that supports athletes. With this scholarship she was able to take part in several snowboard competitions in the USA. In 2002 she met her future partner Daniel Gale while snowboarding. In 2003, Purdy became the Foundation's spokesperson and moved to San Diego to be closer to CAF headquarters. There she continued her profession as a massage therapist and was also involved in the model and acting industry. Later that year, Purdy started working for Freedom Innovations, a manufacturer of prosthetic feet, as an "Amputee Advocate".

She and Daniel Gale founded their own non-profit organization called Adaptive Action Sports in 2005 as a section of Disabled Sports USA for people with physical disabilities who want to get involved in action sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding or surfing, or in the arts and music. Together they worked to establish snowboarding as an independent para-Olympic discipline and were able to achieve this goal in 2014.

She competed in the 2011 New Zealand Winter Games and won a gold medal in para-snowboarding. In the same year she published a Ted talk entitled Living Beyond Limits , which got a wide reach. As a result, she took part in numerous national and international competitions and won several titles.

At the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games , she won the bronze medal in Snowboard Cross . Because of rhabdomyolysis in November 2016, she spent several days in hospital and was therefore unable to compete in the 2016/2017 season. At the Paralympic Winter Games 2018 she was again in the American team and became a silver medalist in snowboard cross class SB-LL2 and bronze medalist in class SB-LL2 in the banked slalom .

Career as an actress

In February 2003, Amy Purdy played a small role as a model in the American Life music video starring singer Madonna . In 2005, Purdy made her film debut in What's Bugging Seth , a film directed by Eli Steele .

Career as a dancer

Amy Purdy dance with an articulated robot at the opening of the 2016 Paralympic Summer Games

Amy Purdy dance with an articulated robot at the opening of the 2016 Paralympic Summer Games

In 2014, Amy Purdy was a contestant on the 18th season of the television show Dancing with the Stars . Along with five-time champion and dancer Derek Hough , she was the first double-amputee candidate to ever appear on the show. Hough originally had no plans to come back on the show, but changed his mind when Purdy was selected as the show's nominee. The training took place at the same time as the Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia, for which Hough and the team were flown in specially.

During the show, she was repeatedly praised for her quick learning ability, immense natural dance ability, incredible perseverance and passion, and role model. She never got a score lower than an 8 (out of 10). For the eighth dance, the Argentine tango, which she danced after suffering a back injury the week before, she received 40 out of 40 points from the jury. Purdy made it to the show's final against Olympic ice dancer and gold medalist Meryl Davis and actress Candace Cameron Bure , eventually finishing second.

At the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Summer Games in 2016 danced Amy Purdy, dressed in one of the fashion designer Danit Peleg designed 3D printed dress, a dance routine with a KUKA - industrial robots , which should symbolize the coexistence of people and technology.

supporting documents

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Andrew Linnehan: Passion, perseverance lift Amy Purdy. espn.com, March 12, 2014; accessed on January 18, 2020.
2. ↑ Amanda Woerner: Amy Purdy 3.0: A Life Reimagined Women's Health Magazine, Nov. 5, 2019; accessed on January 18, 2020.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Susie Floros: An Unexpected Journey: Amy Purdy, limitless on snowboardmag.com, February 28, 2014; accessed on January 18, 2020.
4. ↑ Amy Purdy , portrait at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC); accessed on January 18, 2020.
5. ↑ Living Beyond Limits on ted.com, May 2011; accessed on January 18, 2020.
6. ↑ Paralympics 2016 , presentation of the highlights of the Paralympic Games 2016; accessed on January 18, 2020.

Web links

Commons : Amy Purdy  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Amy Purdy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Official website
• Amy Purdy , portrait at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC)
• Amy Purdy , portrait at Team USA
• Amy Purdy , competition stats