The Border punches above its weight in sporting success, yet these three athletes are in a league of their own, writes BEN ROBSON.
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IMAGINE for a moment that you're perched on top of a mountain with a pair of skis.
The gentle warmth of the sun competes with the biting cold in those moments of stillness.
Pushing away you glide downwards and feel the gathering of pace as you fill your lungs with crisp mountain air, the heady sense of freedom, faster and faster as you clock up 60, then 70 then 80km/h.
Imagine all the while, as you twist and glide past each slalom gate, that you can't see a thing.
"I can't really empathise or imagine what it's like to ski downhill while being visually impaired," Bright's Christian Geiger says.
"At the start of the season our coaches tried blacking out my goggles to simulate it and that was hard enough.
"It felt a little like motion sickness."
But for Christian's skiing partner Jessica Gallagher, skiing blind is her reality.
With Christian as her guide, together they recently returned with a bronze medal in the giant slalom at the Sochi Paralympics.
"To be honest I'm not so much proud of the medal itself," Christian says.
"I really consider myself more a facilitator rather than an athlete, and I'm more proud of helping someone achieve their goal.
"For me it's very humbling being a part of it."
An ambassador for Vision Australia, Jess was named Australian Female Paralympian of the Year in 2010.
Legally blind due to cone dystrophy, a rare genetic disease, Jess is the first Australian athlete in history to medal at a major international summer and winter championships.
Paired since September, Jess and Christian are connected via radio while he skis a few metres ahead and guides her down the slopes.
In just a few months they've had to build their trust and the pair won two gold and three silver World Cup medals before Sochi.
Depending on the discipline, Christian says athletes can reach speeds of 110km/h with as little as 3 per cent vision.
"We have our cue words and she can see shapes so I wear bright colours," he says.
"But if I look back sometimes you can hit an ice patch and get a bit of a wobble on the skis and that freaks her out if she sees me make a mistake.
"In the slalom though I can hear when she's at the gate and hear when she's three or four metres behind me, or she might give me an audio cue when she's at the gate."
Christian himself was a champion junior skier having represented Australia and with hopes of being selected for the 2010 Vancouver games.
But in 2009 he was a passenger in a car accident at Bright which turned his life upside down.
After 11 surgeries and suffering brain injury, Christian underwent speech and walking therapy.
But it took just 12 months to ski again and a little longer to compete.
"In a way the accident just pointed me in a different direction," Christian says.
"It gave me a whole different outlook on life.
"But I've always loved skiing and after family it's the most important part of my life.
"I think the best therapy was to have a goal to get back into skiing -- it's a very special thing, out on the hills.
"When you see the sunrise and feel speed and have that bit of freedom that everyone craves."
Wangaratta's Michael Fawkner knows exactly what it means to have something dear to him.
His words are carefully formed, they take a little effort, but there's no mistaking the determination behind them nor the sense of pride as he shows his silver medals.
They're from the Victorian Open Track and Field Championships for discus and shot put -- and they're from his first competition as an athlete with a disability.
As a youngster Michael took up Little Athletics.
"I really wasn't very good, I was pretty hopeless," he says.
"But I persevered because I loved it so much, and I worked my butt off to get to where I did."
Michael still holds the 100m record at the Malvern Harriers of 10.5 seconds, which he set in 1980, and at one stage held Victorian and Australian veterans records.
But in 2010 Michael became one of only six people in the world diagnosed with a rare form of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a progressive condition that affects the nervous system.
"One of six in the world -- I still can't quite register that in my head," Michael says.
"It was pretty hard to handle at the time -- I went into the Alfred Hospital for a nerve biopsy which should have taken a couple days and I ended up in there for three months.
"I went through horrific days of pain and I was in quite a mess ... I would never want my worst enemy to suffer what I had to go through."
Now in his mid-50s the disease has affected his lower legs and resulted in the total loss of his hearing, requiring two cochlear implants.
"To have my hearing back and to be able to converse with my daughters and communicate with friends again is priceless," Michael says.
But sport has given him a renewed focus and his condition a renewed competitive spirit.
Though it's clear that's always been there -- his certificate from his first schools competition still hangs on the wall as does the kit he wore when he carried the 2000 Olympic flame through Mulwala.
"You can't think what's going to happen tomorrow or next week or next year with a disease," Michael says.
"You just have to take each day and stay positive and my focus at the moment is completely with athletics."
Competing under Deaf Sports Australia, Michael has taken on his first season and wants to take his athletics as far as possible.
"I'm determined to prove that even at my age I can still compete against the young guys," he says.
"And my motto has always been to never give up and if you can dream it, you can do it. If people can see me competing with two cochlear implants and wearing bilateral leg braces, they can see they can compete as well -- there's nothing holding them back."
But there's the added challenge of doing it all on a disability pension.
Sponsorship for disability athletes isn't easy to come by, and wearing worn-out training shoes designed especially for the hammer throw. Michael says it's hard to keep up with the gear he needs.
There are speciality shoes for each of his throwing events, there's the competition discus and shot put at up to $200 each, specialist training and gym membership and gear.
But none of that will stop him as Michael aims for the national deaf athletics championships in September in Melbourne, hoping to qualify for the Asian Pacific Deaf Games.
"I've never represented Australia, but that's one thing I've always wanted to do," Michael says.
Having represented Australia at the Twenty20 World Cup for the Blind in India in 2012, Albury's Daniel Searle knows what it will take to get to the top of his sport.
Cricket-mad Indians followed the team and formed crowds for their matches, jostling for autographs and taking the Baggy Greens' photographs.
"I gave away some gear which means nothing to me because you get new gear for every tour, but it meant the world to them which I thought was pretty special," Daniel says.
This time he's aiming for international competition in an entirely new sport to him -- triathlon.
Under coach Fabrizio Andreoni, Daniel is looking towards triathlon Paralympic selection in January ahead of Rio.
"Hopefully I can get a top-two placing at the Nationals and potentially put my name up there for national selection," Daniel says.
Growing up in Barham, Daniel lost his sight at 16.
"I played a fair bit of sport like Little Aths and tennis and squash and indoor cricket," he says.
"Then after I lost my sight one of the biggest things to adjust to, especially in a small town where sport's such an important thing, is that feeling of disconnect.
"But when I found out there was this whole world of disabled sports it was awesome that I could get back involved."
The genetic condition called Lebers Optic Atrophy was diagnosed just as Daniel was set to get his Learner plates.
"We didn't know it was in our family so it was a shock at the time and hard to adjust to," he says.
"I went through that period of grief and denial and anger.
"It happened over the period of my birthday when I'd had practice tests to get my Ls but by the time of birthday I didn't have enough sight.
"It doesn't mean anything to me now but at the time when I was told I was never going to have a licence and never drive when I was this close, it was a bit heart-breaking.
"Even after the diagnosis you're thinking it can't be real ... it took a while to accept and you want to disassociate yourself with the vision-impaired community."
Now Daniel is heading into a career helping others and looking to register as a physiotherapist by the end of the year.
"If my doing sport encourages others I think that's an awesome thing," he says.
"That's part of the reason I want to get into physiotherapy -- I like the idea of working with people with their rehab goals and get them back walking.
"I like the idea I wouldn't ask someone to do something I wasn't willing to do myself."
Daniel says the face of disability sport has changed over 10 years towards integration.
"It's awesome because you don't have to go to a specialist club to get involved in disabled sport.
"The Albury sporting community is extremely inclusive -- people see me out there doing this and are happy to help me, whether it's riding my tandem or guiding me while I run."
Daniel is always looking for new pilots and running mates and people can follow his progress by searching for Dan's Para-triathlon Training on Facebook.
Life is full of obstacles.
But the Border region's athletes prove that there's no barrier to success, whatever the field.
"I'm not dead yet so I'm definitely not finished with sporting achievements," Michael says.
"My sporting life has been like a hurdles race -- you get your highs and you get your lows, and I've certainly had my lows.
"But you just have to run with them.
"I can tell you this is just the start of my career as a deaf competitor and a para-athlete, and I'm going to put my heart and soul into achieving the best I possibly can."