Joany Badenhorst

Joany Badenhorst

Joany Badenhorst March 2014
Personal information
Born	(1994-08-10) 10 August 1994 (age 23) Harrismith, South Africa
Sport
Country	Australia
Sport	Para-snowboarding
Disability class	SB-LL
Medal record Women's snowboarding IPC Para-Snowboard World Championships 2015 La Molina Women's SB-LL2 Banked 2017 Big White Women's SB-LL2 Banked 2017 Big White Women's SB-LL2 Cross

Joany Badenhorst (born 10 August 1994) is an Australian Paralympian who was selected to compete in Para-snowboard cross at the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi. She would have been the first female snowboarder to represent Australia at the Winter Paralympics, but was forced to withdraw from her event after suffering an injury to her left knee whilst training on the morning of the event.

Joany Badenhorst was born on 10 August 1994 in Harrismith, South Africa. Her mother Petro is a teacher and her father Peter is an architect. She has two brothers, Garrett and Peter. She attended Harrismith Primary School.

On 12 July 2005, whilst playing with a group of friends on her family farm, her trousers were caught in the power take-off shaft of a tractor that was clearing firebreaks. Her left leg was severed 6 inches (150 mm) below the knee. The tractor driver died in a bush fire a month later. Her family moved to Australia in 2009 so she could receive better medical assistance. She had further surgery to rectify problems with her leg in early 2011. As of 2014^[update] she lives in Griffith, New South Wales, and resides in Jindabyne during the Australian ski season.

Before her accident, Badenhorst was an accomplished athlete who had won provincial colours in high jump and modern dance. After her accident, she was fitted with a prosthetic leg, and placed second in the school 100 metres event. She competed for South Africa at the Paralympic Youth Games in 2009, and narrowly missed qualifying for the Australian athletics team for the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.

Australian Paralympic snowboarding coach Peter Higgins identified Badenhorst as a likely snowboarder after the London Games, and she commenced training in this sport. In taking up snowboarding, she needed a new custom-made leg. Badenhorst said: "I need a special leg that has to be engineered differently to accommodate the different pressures and angles of snowboarding".