Davy Zyw will become the first snowsports athlete with motor neurone disease to compete in the Winter Paralympics. I read that sentence three times when I first saw it, because the sheer scale of what this man is doing needs a moment to register.
What MND Takes
Motor neurone disease attacks the nerve cells that control movement. It is progressive, it is degenerative, and it is terminal. Most people diagnosed with MND face a future of increasing physical limitation. The disease takes your muscles, your mobility, your independence. It does not take your mind, which means you are fully aware of everything it is doing to you.
Against that backdrop, Davy Zyw has chosen to compete at the highest level of adaptive sport. He has trained through deterioration. He has pushed his body in directions that his condition is actively trying to close off. And he has qualified for the Winter Paralympics.
A Beacon of Hope
Zyw has described himself as wanting to be a beacon of hope for others with MND. That phrase could sound like a cliche from someone else. From a man who is strapping himself to a snowboard and hurtling down a mountain while his nervous system fights him every inch of the way, it sounds like an understatement.
Scotland has a complicated relationship with its sporting heroes. We celebrate them fiercely when they win and question them anxiously when they falter. But Davy Zyw sits outside that dynamic entirely. His achievement is not measured in medals, though I hope he wins one. It is measured in the simple fact of being there, of refusing to let a devastating diagnosis define the boundaries of what is possible.
What Sport Can Be
There are moments when sport transcends competition and becomes something more important. This is one of those moments. When Davy Zyw takes to the slopes at the Paralympics, he will carry the hopes of every person living with MND who has been told what they cannot do. He will carry the admiration of every Scot who understands what courage looks like when it is tested beyond anything most of us will ever face.
I will be watching. Scotland should be watching. This man is magnificent.