Christian Geiger
Christian Geiger and Jessica Gallagher in December 2013. The microphones allow them to communicate with each other.
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| Personal information | ||||||||||
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| Full name | Christian Geiger | |||||||||
| Nationality |
 Australia
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| Born | 29 March 1988 | |||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||
| Country | Australia | |||||||||
| Sport | Para-alpine skiing | |||||||||
| Event(s) |
Downhill Super-G Giant Slalom Slalom Super Combined |
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Medal record
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Christian Geiger (born 29 March 1988) is an Australian skier and sighted guide for visually impaired skiers. He was Jessica Gallagher's guide skier at the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, winning a bronze medal. He represented Australia at the 2008 World Junior Alpine Skiing Championships and the 2009 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, but his career was cut short when he was severely injured in a traffic collision in 2009. He became Jessica Gallagher's sighted guide in 2013, and guided her to silver medals in women's slalom and giant slalom at the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup in Thredbo.
Geiger was born on 29 March 1988 in Australia, but lived in Austria until he was eight. On 26 September 2009, he was involved in a car crash. The vehicle he was travelling in as a passenger slammed into a tree just 30 metres (98 ft) from his family's home in Bright, Victoria. He suffered severe injuries to his arm, spleen and liver as well as serious brain trauma. As a result, he was in an induced coma for a week. It took months before he could walk, talk and eat independently again. As of August 2011, he had ten operations, extensive physiotherapy and speech therapy.
Geiger began skiing at the age of two in Austria, and made the national team in 2006. He won numerous Australian Championships during his teenage years, and represented Australia at the 2008 World Junior Alpine Skiing Championships and the 2009 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. This changed after his 2009 accident. "I tried to get back to able bodied [competition] but couldn't quite get back to where I was, let alone where I wanted to go," he later explained, "so I had to hang it up."
In 2013, Australian Paralympic Alpine Head Coach Steve Graham asked Geiger to replace Eric Bickerton as Jessica Gallagher's sighted guide. In their first competition, the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup in Thredbo, New South Wales, he guided Gallagher to silver medals in women's slalom and giant slalom.
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