Edinburgh Snowboarder Defies MND Diagnosis to Compete at Winter Paralympics
Davy Zyw from Edinburgh has described the "tragic beauty" of becoming what is believed to be the first snowsport athlete with motor neurone disease (MND) to compete at the Winter Paralympics.
The 38-year-old snowboarder is part of the ParalympicsGB team competing at the Milan-Cortina Games, which began on 6 March.
In a video shared by the team on Instagram, Zyw revealed he was diagnosed with the incurable, life-shortening disease in 2018 at age 30.
"Essentially, I was told I had two or three years to live," Zyw said. "I'm seven years on and I've just fought my way up the ladder to get on the team at the Paralympics.
"I've had to accept the impossible, accept my fate. But, within that, there was a freedom. A freedom that nothing is impossible and that's the message I want people to take away."
Background and Career Journey
Zyw, who works as a wine merchant, explained that an injury prevented him from pursuing a non-disabled snowboarding career, a dream he had nurtured since starting the sport on a dry slope in northern Edinburgh.
"I've been a snowboarder all my life," he said. "Me and my twin brother, we started on a Hillend dry slope when we were 12 or 13.
"I've been obsessed with snowboarding my entire life. A knee injury took me away from the slopes and into a career in wine.
"But the fact my diagnosis of being with an incurable degenerative neurological condition has brought me back to my childhood dream of being a snowboarder."
Zyw only decided to put himself forward for the Games in the winter of 2024 and has funded his participation through crowdfunding and support from his employer.
"There's like a tragic beauty in this situation," he added.
"Above all, what I love about being on my board, being on the slopes, being in that competition mind zone is, you know, the disability, the daily challenges of MND, of living with this disease are gone and there's so much freedom in there.
"When I'm dropping in, when I'm strapping, when I'm in the starting gate, MND is, it might be the reason I'm there, but it couldn't be further removed from what I'm thinking about in that moment.
"I'm thinking about the course in front of me and how I'm going to rip down it the best I can."
