YANQING, China — The 2022 Winter Paralympic Games concluded on Sunday with China by far the most medals at 61, followed by the indomitable Ukraine team and Canada.
But if the Aigner family, four brothers skiing from the Austrian countryside, were a country, they would have placed eighth in these Games. They have won 11 (six gold) more medals than countries like Norway, Japan, Italy and Sweden.
Veronika and twins Johannes and Barbara, and Elisabeth, Veronika’s older sister and guide, is a powerhouse ski country in itself. They are the von Trapps of the Austrian blind skiers and their Paralympic debuts made a splash.
Aigners’ other mentors are Klara Sykora and Matteo Fleischmann, boyfriend and girlfriend and honorary members of the Alpine Aigner clan, who have taken home nine of Austria’s 13 medals. (The guides’ medals don’t count in the official rankings, but Elisabeth Aigner said she’ll treasure the two of them as much as anyone else in the family.)
“We’re very lucky to have experienced this because not everyone can say they’ve been to the Paralympics,” said Elisabeth Aigner. But being able to share it with the whole family is incredible.”
It was a family vacation, he said, but with a lot of medals.
Veronika Aigner, 19, won two gold medals with 23-year-old Elisabeth skiing ahead of her. They hugged for over a minute at the finish line when they won their first gold on Friday.
“We weren’t talking a lot during this hug because we were crying a lot,” said Veronika. We were very happy and proud of Babsi as well,” she said.
Babsi is 16-year-old Barbara Aigner, who is Johannes Aigner’s twin. The money stormed the Alpine skiing scene at the world championships in Lillehammer, Norway in January, winning a gold medal in their first major international event.
When Johannes arrived in China, he wasn’t even sure he was going to enter the blind downhill race until he succeeded in a practice run. He entered and won gold, then another gold in the giant slalom and a total of five medals.
These Paralympics are over, but the visually impaired Alpine ski world will have to deal with this family for a long time.
“We have many more years ahead of us,” Barbara said through her guide, Sykora. Our goal is to continue what we started,” she said.
For most competitors in the Covid era, traveling to the Paralympics meant going alone. Family members are not permitted to participate in adult competitors, but any athlete under the age of 18 may be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
This allowed both parents, Petra and Christian Aigner, to book a trip for each of their 16-year-old twins. The only person unable to travel was the oldest, Irmgard, who was once Veronika’s guide.
All three racers, Veronika, Barbara, and Johannes, all have congenital cataracts; a condition that causes clouding of the lens of the eye at birth and can lead to decreased vision and blindness. All of the visually impaired siblings have had at least two surgeries to stabilize the bruise, but they still have trouble seeing and rely on guides to get downhill.
Petra Aigner was born with the same condition and had 30 surgeries to keep it from getting worse. He can’t see his kids racing from the stands, so Christian Aigner gives step-by-step updates.
“I’m glad I didn’t see it,” said Petra Aigner, through a translator, shortly after her daughters finished first and second in slalom. “I would be very nervous.”
Aigners lives on a farm in Gloggnitz, a hamlet of about 6,000 people on the Austrian motorway about an hour south of Vienna. The farm has 30 chickens, four workhorses, a donkey and a rabbit that produce eggs for the family and neighbors.
Christian Aigner works as a watchman on a water pipeline through the nearby forests, and Petra heads to the farm with the animal-loving Barbara.
The first skiers were older sisters; Soon they all joined. Having met them through racing, Sykora eventually became Barbara’s guide. His father, Thomas Sykora, won a bronze medal in slalom at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
He now works as a television commentator. At one of his concerts, he dons a video camera on his helmet and rides down the mountain, giving audiences in ski-savvy Austria a glimpse of the trail. It’s kind of a guide, and Klara Sykora does similar work for one person.
One night last year, Klara Sykora went to dinner at Aigners’ house and brought her boyfriend, Fleischmann, who is also a ski racer. Petra noticed how well Fleischmann got along with Johannes and asked her to be her son’s guide.
this guide role is critical in blind skiing and requires impeccable teamwork and an almost divine trust. The guides descend the course in front of the racer – they are not too far ahead or too close to be inaudible, but not close enough to slow the racer or cause a collision. They say turns and bumps as they go. It’s a unique bond that explains why Sykora and Fleischmann are honorary Aigners.
“We are very honored to be a part of this family,” said Klara Sykora.
Not long after the group arrived in China for the Paralympics, Aigners were all over the athlete village in Yanqing, especially when hotel-staying parents joined them.
Especially the last few days of the races felt like a celebration of Aigner’s dominance on the slopes. Barbara Aigner and Klara Sykora followed on the medal podium, while Johannes Aigner and Fleischmann collected their own medals as Veronika and Elisabeth glided almost as if tied by a string.
Johannes Aigner and Fleischmann were second in his first run at the giant slalom on Friday, strong enough to nearly secure a medal unless Johannes was knocked out in his second run.
But he wanted more. He told Fleischmann that he planned to put it all in in his second races, just as his Austrian ancestor Franz Klammer did at the 1976 Olympics.
“It was a gamble,” said Fleischmann with a laugh, “but we talked about it and I fully supported his decision. And it paid off.”
When it was over, they greeted the rest of the family and their surrogate family members, all except their parents in the uniform of the Austrian Paralympic Alpine racing team, a medal-winning family nation.
“I’m really happy to have all my sisters and family here,” said Johannes Aigner, for whom Fleischmann served as translator. “Coming to the finish area was incredible and they’re all here, clapping for you, hugging you and crying for you. It’s just incredible.”