10 Aussie athletes doing awesome things at the Winter Paralympics.

I was at dinner with a friend the other night, and she asked me what I was writing about for my sports column this weekend.

“The Winter Olympic Games,” I told her, and she laughed.

“You mean the ones that have been over for a few weeks?” she said. “Slow news week!”

But what she didn’t realise – and what many, many others don’t realise – is that there is an Olympic Winter Games happening right now. It’s the Paralympics, and they’ve been running from the 7th of March and carry on right through to the 16th.

The unfortunate part is that Australians generally don’t tend to get excited about the Winter games – we just don’t tend to perform as well at the snow sports, considering that our vast country is barely blessed with any snow. So we turn our attention away from the skiers and snowboarders, and towards the swimmers and the sprinters.

And if we’re disinterested in the Winter games, we’re even less interested in the Paralympic Winter Games. The TV coverage reflects that – while Channel Ten dedicated hours every night and an entire sub-channel to the Sochi 2014 Olympics, the Paralympics get a mere half hour of highlights on ABC every night. And that’s disappointing.

Here’s what you need to know about our Paralympic skiers: they are probably some of the most daring skiers that have ever competed in the sport.

They might be vision-impaired, or they might be missing limbs or have little use of their lower bodies, forcing them to squeeze themselves into a contraption that’s essentially a large chair attached to just one ski. They can only use their arms to steer.

The snowboarders, too, are remarkable. This is the first year for para-snowboarding at the Winter Olympics, and many of the boarders competing in the Olympics have prosthetic limbs; they might also have spinal injury, nerve damage, cerebral palsy or an acquired brain injury.

The speeds are considerable. The courses are tricky. There are a million risk factors involved. Accidents happen, and they happen often. But the Paralympians keep launching themselves down the slopes and fields.

Here’s what you need to know about the Paralympics – and particularly what’s been happening with some of our brilliant Australian athletes…

1. Russia is currently leading the medal count – in fact, they’re absolutely killing it, with 47 medals in total, 16 of which are gold. Germany, Ukraine and Austria are lined up behind them.

2. Total 45 nations are represented in the Paralympics all up, with Australia being just one of them – Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Andorra and Bosnia are just some of the others.

3. There are 72 medals to potentially win, and five different sports to compete in. These include alpine skiing, cross country skiing (up to 20km), biathlon (combining shooting and skiing), ice sled hockey and wheelchair curling.

4. The Aussie team consists of 11 athletes in total, with the oldest being 41-year-old Trent Milton, and the youngest being 14-year-old Ben Tudhope. Ben is also the youngest athlete in the entire Games.

5. Since the Winter Paralympics began in the 70s, we’ve won 28 medals in total, 11 of which were gold.

6. Australia is yet to win a medal during the Sochi Games. One of our biggest medal hopes, vision-impaired Australian skier Melissa Perrine, only just missed out on a medal due to a mistake by the Australian Paralympic Committee (the APC).

Melissa was ready to go into the second round of the slalom, but was disqualified because she was wearing a visor taped to her goggles, in order to keep rain off. Her vision distorts even

further when there are water droplets on her goggles; however, she had no idea that visors were an illegal piece of equipment.

APC chief executive Jason Hellwig said it was a “mindnumbingly dumb mistake” and an oversight by those who were responsible for checking the rules.

7. Another disappointment for skier Jess Gallagher in the Sochi games; while she successfully won a bronze during the Vancouver Paralympics, she missed out on a medal in her pet slalom race.

While Gallagher finished her first race in four place, she went for her second run and slid off the course, finishing in last place – 41 seconds behind winner Russia’s Aleksandra Frantceva. Unfortunately, she’s been feeling unwell ever since suffering a concussion during training last month, which could explain why she wasn’t quite up to her usual incredible standards.

8. Three cheers for Australia’s first female sit-skier, Tori Pendergast, who had two clean runs at her first Paralympics despite the fact that she only took up skiing a few years ago. Pendergast, who finished in seventh place, was born without the lower part of her spine, giving her little use of her lower body.

9. Best of luck to Aussie skiers Toby Kane and Mitchell Gourley, who are competing in the last few events in Sochi – the super combined event. We’ll keep an eye out for their results.

10. Let’s spare a little thought for Matthew Robinson, a para-snowboarder who died last month after a snowboard crash in Spain. He was competing in the world cup, but crashed and suffered such severe neck and spinal injuries that he died when being transported home to Melbourne. The Aussie team wore black armbands at the opening ceremony in memory of him.

Have you been watching the Paralympics? What do you think of the lack of coverage?