11/05/2024
Meet Matti Suur-Hamari.
Matti is a professional snowboarder and snowboarding professional - snowboard champion and champion of snowboarding like no other.
Matti suffered a severe injury in 2009 in a traffic accident, in which he lost his left leg after a car crashed into him, but did not let the misfortune hold him back.
He begun riding again soon after getting back to his feet - now with a high-tech prosthetic, and started competing in boardercross and banked slalom, in international level in 2013.
Since, he has competed in every major para-snowboarding contest, and, after completing his competitive career, is one of the most decorated para-athletes in snowboarding.
Matti's achievements include gold medals from X-Games, World Championships and Paralympic Games.
Also, he had the honour to lead his national team in the Parade of Nations as the flag-bearer of Finland into the PyeongChang Winter Paralympics in 2018.
Last fall Matti gained fame, as well as a whole lot of love, respect and admiration, by almost winning the Dancing With Stars -competition - and is now arguably the snowboarder with the best dance moves on planet Earth.
Currently, Matti is concentrating on freeride snowboarding, especially developing his skills as a back-country splitboarder - an undertaking which brought him to Tamok for the first time soon after winning his first gold medal in Paralympics back in 2018 - and has already proven that missing a limb is no reason for not setting grander goals and reaching for higher grounds.
Matti, who lives in Ruka, Kuusamo, where he's worked as a coach for Snowboard Academy, visits Tamok regularly, and oversees the going-ons, proceedings and developments of Huset's shred crew TST - Tamokhuset Snowboard Team, as the team manager.
https://youtu.be/VrmVluJAiZ0?si=40BnjeS2O987_9Ch