From Russia with love for Frost

Admirers mob deaf-blind skater

By Martin Cleary, The Ottawa Citizen, December 5, 2009

Seconds after achieving a moment like no other, Kevin Frost was unexpectedly swarmed.

The deaf-blind long-track speed skater from Gloucester was frightened. He was in a foreign country. He didn't know who was mobbing him. He didn't know what to do.

Then he heard a voice. The words of a translator instantly comforted him and he began to understand why he was being swamped with hugs and kisses.

Never before in the short history of long-track speed skating for athletes with visual disabilities had someone skated the men's 500 metres so fast. He'd become like a rock star without knowing.

And the six other skaters on the ice with him wanted to know how Frost, whose varied background includes time as a hockey referee and rower, had managed to achieve what hadn't been done before. They wanted to take that information home and be like him some day.

There was more significant to the first of Frost's four memorable skates at the Russian Paralympic Open Blind Cup in Chelyabinsk. It occurred as that small segment of the sports world is trying to take a giant step to becoming part of the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

The Russian open was the inaugural open blind competition for long-track speed skaters.

When the greatest competition of Frost's speed skating career ended last week, he had won four gold medals, set four world records, established four personal best times, and was named the all-around sportsman of the championship.

Athletes competed in three separate categories, based on their degree of visibility from partial (less than 10 per cent) to total blindness.

Frost, who competed in the B2 middle class -- he has only eight per cent vision -- owned the oval, posting the fastest times among all 60 skaters from five countries.

That's quite an achievement, but underscored again by his age: at 42, he's the oldest skater of the group.

Frost suffers from Usher Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes progressive hearing and vision loss. He has 15 per cent hearing. When speaking with people, he either reads their lips or uses an FM hookup on his hearing system to raise sounds to 90 decibels.

When Frost crossed the finish line of the 500 metres in 43.25 seconds, he clipped four-tenths of a second off the record.

"I didn't know what was going on," he recalls. "They were touching me. It was very overwhelming how it happened. They were very touching and emotional."

Once Frost understood his peers were simply admiring his feat, he thanked them and gave them Canadian figure skating pins.

Speed Skating Canada helped to sponsor Frost's trip to the Russian competition, giving him $1,000 and a national team uniform. The trip cost him $5,000.

In his three other races in Russia, he lowered his best times in the 1,000 metres to 1:24.75, the 1,500 metres to 2:15.08, and the 3,000 metres to 4:52.27.

During the competition, Frost was approached by a former Russian Olympic speed skater, who also paid tribute to him.

"The skater gave me his own armband (worn in competition) and he asked me to pass it on when I saw something remarkable," Frost said.

Frost, who trains 18 hours a week on speed skating and extra hours for rowing, credits coach Mike

Rivet for getting him physically and mentally prepared for Russian event.

While Frost and his colleagues push the International Paralympic Committee for the entry of visually impaired speed skating into the 2014 Paralympic Games, Frost is confident he'll be there racing for gold at age 47.

"I'll be in my prime," says Frost, whose diminished vision led to the loss of his driver's licence 10 years ago. Two years later, he was put on long-term disability from his job in distribution for Loeb stores. Frost started speed skating soon after.

"I didn't want to sit around doing nothing, so I got involved in speed skating because I loved being on the ice," says Frost, who earlier was a hockey referee.