Sven is the nickname given to Halgren’s twin brother, Lucas, who died in 2016 in a motorcycle accident – a tragedy which nearly repeats itself three times in the skiers’ backstory.
It was also a motorcycle accident in the 1970s that forced his dad, Peter, to learn to ski on one leg. It was another in 2013 that left Halgren in a coma, where a defibrillator was used to restart his heart three times and which left him an above-the-knee amputee on his left leg. The third claimed his brother’s life in New Zealand three years later.
“He was the best skier. He was a ski patrol who got me into skiing because he would volunteer with a disabled program before I lost my leg to get my dad a free day pass. If you volunteered a day, you got free day pass,” Halgren said.
“It’s all for him. It’s for my family. It’s for the people who have struggled. He’s dead, I’m here living.”
It was an Australian ski resort where Halgren honed his skiing after losing his leg. He got a job at the Selwyn Snow Resort in Kosciuszko National Park where he was promised year-round skiing.
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“I learned how to ski in Australia at Selwyn snow fields. I met somebody in Vermont, and they said I could get a job in the summer and ski year-round” he said. “Selwyn snow fields is a tiny ski resort, the best one ever though.”
But everything changed for Halgren when he lost his brother.
“My brother dying was the most important thing that ever happened to me. Helped me get sober, helped me realise if you want to be special, you actually have to do special things. It was the kick in the butt I needed,” he said.
“Even my motorcycle accident … I was still chasing girls and lust and women and champagne and parties and then my brother died three years later and that was really the kick in the butt I needed.
“But that’s also the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and he’s not here to see any of this. He’s dead, and I like to think he’s looking down from whatever you believe in, but I know what happens when you die. I’ve died. It’s not good. You don’t get to watch Pat win the Paralympics.”
Halgren on the third day of competition following the combined slalom. Credit: Getty Images for IPC
Such is the basis for his larger-than-life personality.
“You celebrate the victories the same as the defeats. And I’ve been blessed to have to develop my character over the last 11 years losing my leg. I could either roll over and die or I could become the greatest Patrick Halgren on Earth and that’s what you’re seeing,” he said.
“I’ve learned to be unirritable, unembarrassable because that’s what it’s about. It’s about being vulnerable in this life, it’s about trying things and failing. And it’s okay to be embarrassed, it’s okay to look weird. Actually, to be number one, you got to be a little odd – it’s a math’s joke.”
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In the bleachers at the bottom of the ski run, Halgren’s support was modest. The core of his cheer squad consisting of his uncle, mother, Cathy, and father, Peter. And though he boasts about claiming life’s luxuries now that he’s won a medal, the reality is far humbler.
“We’re broke. Simple life, simple luxuries. [My parents] left the country once for their honeymoon 50 years ago. Once to pick up their dead kid from New Zealand and once to see me win the Paralympics,” Halgren said.
“I just won a silver medal. That’s like, 15 grand. I’m going to buy my mum a car.”
This masthead has travelled to Cortina as a guest of Paralympics Australia.
The Winter Paralympic Games is broadcast on the Nine Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
