Birgit Skarstein

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Birgit Skarstein Para rowing
, cross-country skiing

Birgit Skarstein.jpg
Personal information
Type of disability (class): LW11 , PR1Wx
Nationality: NorwayNorway Norway
Birthday: February 10, 1989
Place of birth: Levanger
Medals
 

Birgit Lovise Røkkum Skarstein (born February 10, 1989 in Levanger ) is a Norwegian disabled athlete in the disciplines of para cross-country skiing ( para Nordic skiing ) and para rowing . She is four times world champion in para rowing and holds the world record in the PR1W1x class over 2000 meters with 10: 13.630. In addition to her sports career, she is very committed to social and political issues.

Life

Birgit Skarstein grew up in Levanger in Fylke Trøndelag and started swimming and orienteering at an early age. After finishing school, she worked in a children's home in Thailand. During a trip to Malaysia in December 2008, she sustained a severe foot injury that resulted in 16 operations. After complications from epidural anesthesia in the last of these operations, she was paralyzed from the hip down. In 2009 Skarstein moved to Oslo and studied political science at the University of Oslo .

Skarstein became known to the general public in 2012 through her participation in the reality series Ingen Grenser , in which participants with various physical disabilities went on a 400-kilometer expedition together with the adventurer Lars Monsen , which culminated with the ascent of the 2286-meter-high Snøhetta .

Athletic career

After her spinal cord injury, Skarstein started para rowing and made her World Cup debut in 2013. In the same year she was runner-up in the single world championship. The following year she won her first world title, followed by three further titles in 2017, 2018 and 2019, as well as a bronze medal in 2015. In addition to para rowing, she is also active in paral-cross-country skiing, and uses this as training to further improve herself in rowing . Nevertheless, she is among the world's best in this sport and won the overall World Cup as well as several bronze and silver medals at world championships in 2018.

In her career, Skarstein has participated in three Paralympic Games so far , the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro and the Winter Games in Sochi and Peyong Chang, and is qualified for the Summer Paralympics 2020 in Tokyo .

Social and political engagement

In addition to her athletic career, Skarstein is politically and socially active. She was, among other things, part of the student parliament and sat on the finance committee of the city of Oslo for the workers' party . In 2014 she was also appointed to the newly created Norwegian Biotechnology Council, of which she was a member until 2019. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2016 she was invited as a speaker on the subject of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and spoke about the possibilities that digitization can offer people with disabilities.

Awards (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birgit Skarstein Paralympic.org, accessed on February 19, 2020 (English)
  2. ↑ a b Birgit Skarstein , skiforbundet.no, accessed on February 19, 2020 (Norwegian)
  3. ↑ Går flere mil på hendene , klikk.no, accessed on February 19, 2020 (Norwegian)
  4. ↑ Birgit Skarstein runda Blormen i rullestol , universitas.no, accessed on February 19, 2020 (Norwegian)
  5. ↑ Går flere mil på hendene , klikk.no, accessed on February 19, 2020 (Norwegian)
  6. ↑ Birgit Skarstein , worldrowing.com, accessed on February 19, 2020 (English)
  7. ↑ Tidlegare Bioteknologiråd , bioteknologiradet.no, accessed on February 19, 2020 (Norwegian)
  8. ↑ What the Fourth Industrial Revolution will do for people with disabilities , weforum.org, accessed on February 19, 2020 (English)
  9. ↑ 2017 World Rowing Award winners revealed , worldrowing.org, accessed on February 19, 2020 (English)
personal data
SURNAME Skarstein, Birgit
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Skarstein, Birgit Lovise Røkkum
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian sportswoman
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1989
PLACE OF BIRTH Levanger , Norway