1. Physical Impairment: Below-knee amputee
2. Challenges of Having a Physical Impairment: Not many. I could not become a ballet dancer.
3. Education: Masters Degree in Sport Science and Adapted Physical Education
4. Employment: Run and own (R-active) – travel & adventure tour company for people with disabilities
5. Interests / Hobbies: Skiing, mountain biking, gardening and traveling
6. Life’s Ambition / Goals / Passion: To break down barriers of negative attitudes and prejudice
7. Advice “Life’s Lesson”:
The best support in life, or promotion for a successful life, is challenge.
MORE ABOUT REINHILD
Stubbornness or Determination
Reinhild Möller
My life’s future seemed destined when I lost my leg in a farming accident at the age of three. People thought I was crippled and had pity on me.
My parents had a small farm and had very little income. Like most households in the village, we had three or four cows, five or six pigs, and the chickens were running free in the back and front yard. The village, even today, is like one big family living in a cluster of different houses. Our Grandparents were an integral part of the family.
During childhood, I was the poor little girl that had lost a leg in that tragic accident. I experienced how easily people became prejudiced. I wondered why people felt sorry for me. I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with me! It was then that I felt I wanted to prove everyone was wrong.
I was expected to stay single since no man would be attracted to a woman with an artificial limb. If it had not been for this kind of attitude, my education would be like that of all other kids in the village, which would have consisted of grammar school, then an apprenticeship in town. I was the only farm girl in the village that went to college and got a degree. I think I might be to this day.
As a young girl I had the reputation of being worse than a whole bunch of boys. My Grandma, who had hardly ever left the village in her life, was convinced that after my accident I had only received blood transfusions from “very wild street boys.”
I did like everything exciting and that seemed to scare my friends. I always liked to push the envelope a little further than others thought was possible. One time I was curious to see how it would be to ride my bicycle with my eyes closed. Just as I began to analyze how it felt, my bike came to a sudden stop. Our neighbour’s tractor was in my way. I had to push the bike with a wobbly front tire all the way home.
As far back as I can remember, I would not allow people to determine what I could or could not do. My sister and I had to help on the farm after school in the summer when the seasonal work was intense. After a day in the field my mother always made time to go with us to the public swimming pool. The first years after my accident she would put our blanket and towels right next to the edge of the pool so I could reach the water quickly. My mother, and later I, would throw a towel over the artificial limb, to cover it up.
When I became a teenager and wanted to join my girlfriends, things started to become difficult. I realized that I was basically hiding from the eyes of the public at the edge of the pool. I asked myself, what do I have to hide? Was I any less than my friends? Not in my opinion! And I did not want to let people think any other way. It took great effort to go to the most popular location at the pool where you had trees and grass to lay on and lots of people around me. Then I walked like most teenagers do in a strutting fashion to the edge of the water, where, very slowly, I would take my leg off and leave it uncovered on the side of the pool. This whole experience strengthened me and gave me self-esteem. I felt that I had the power to make the rules and maintain my dignity.
School never was easy for me. I did not care much about it and seemed to manage always at the final moment to pass the tests. Three years of boarding school gave me the first peek of the world outside my little village.
The last year in high school I was diagnosed with a severe hip dysplasia and was told I might need to use a wheelchair in the future. That was the first time that I felt I had a disability. I joined the local disabled sports program. I became an instructor for adapted physical exercise and gave group lessons twice a week. That was when I met my first sponsor. The physician who had to oversee the group lessons was an amputee and loved to ski. He asked me if I was a skier. When I told him that I could not afford to buy the expensive equipment, he sent me to the sports shop in town to buy what I needed at his expense.
That was the beginning of a very special life-long friendship and the start of my athletic career. I did complete a three-year apprenticeship as an optical technician before I followed my dream to study sports. In order to be accepted to study Sports and Physical Education at the University of Heidelberg, every student had to prove their ability. 150 students showed up for the two days of tryouts. At the end of the second day, 50 students had passed the test and I was one of them. The examining board had not noticed that I was handicapped. During the time in Heidelberg I had the best and the most fundamental technical training for any kind of competitive sport. I had to keep up with my fellow nondisabled students in track and field, swimming, gymnastics, basketball, volleyball, rhythmic gymnastics and skiing. After two years on the German Disabled Ski Team, I was a three-time world champion. Two years after that in 1984 I won three more gold medals and one silver medal at the Winter Paralympics, then two gold medals at the Summer Paralympics.
As I was finishing up the thesis for my Masters degree and starting to close up the apartment in Heidelberg, where I lived with my husband who had been my teenage boyfriend, I found a love letter from one of my husband’s co-workers and was devastated. We had planned to go on a one-year around-the-world backpacking trip after I completed school. My husband had planned to quit his job, and we had the airline tickets on the table. That was 1986. I was 30 years old, had a broken marriage, no job and no plans for the future. I just knew that I could not let this personal disaster destroy me. I decided to go alone on the one-year trip.
My husband left four days prior to my departure. I had basically the same stops as he did. We never ran in to each other. I spent the winter in New Zealand and managed to get a little job in the race department of a ski area. This paid for lift tickets and some training as well. On my stop through the United States I met and fell in love with American Reed Robinson, a competitive skier with a disability. Five months later he followed me to New Zealand to join me for the winter season. We rented a corner of the large living room in a house overlooking Queenstown and the surrounding lake and mountains. Ed Bickerstaff, who had been racing against Reed in the recent Paralympics and World Championships, was sharing the house with three other young fellows. Two more in the corner of the living room didn’t make a big difference. Sometimes the rest of the living room was a stopover for backpackers travelling through the area.
When I got back to Germany in 1987, I had two months to get ready for the Paralympics in Innsbruck 1988. Luck was again on my side. Until then, I had not considered myself as a professional athlete who could go and find sponsors. But the experience I had gained on my trip around the world, along with Reed, my American boyfriend, gave me the confidence to try. I approached K2 Ski in Germany and hit it big. K2 has been loyal to me throughout the last 17 years and is still supporting me with their products. In 1995 I raced in the nondisabled mountain bike World Championships on K2 bikes. Recently I finished my first XTERRA off road triathlon with a K2 mountain bike.
I began to live between two continents. I was constantly struggling financially. With the hope of finding a sponsor so that I could train and compete professionally, I planned and organized a tandem tour across the U.S. Luanne Burke was a blind skier on the U.S. Disabled Ski Team. She and I, accompanied by Reed Robinson, who drove the support car, began on July 9, 1989 in San Francisco and arrive on Sept.11 in Washington D.C. We did not raise any extra money, but gained a lot of endurance and strength for the 1990 First Interstate Bank World Championships in Winter Park, Colorado.
It was now the right time to get a job. I was asked to apply for the position of an assistant professor at a teachers college in southern Germany. I had a five-year contract with the prospect of getting a Ph.D., but the college was constantly struggling for recognition. It was boring and not satisfying for me. I quit the job and left to live with Reed Robinson in the United States. I started an adventure tour business for people with disabilities. I continued to raise money by giving slide shows about the trip around the world, the Summer Paralympics in Seoul and the 5000 km Bicycle Tour ‘Pedal for the Medal’ across the U.S. When I went to Lillehammer in 1994, I was ready for the competition, but also exhausted in terms of fundraising and financial uncertainties. I was ready to go back to work.
I had a little sponsor in my hometown in Germany who had sponsored me periodically during my career. I suggested a party for my return to Lillehammer. That’s how sure I was to win some gold medals. My parents and I did not expect a large celebration when we went into town that evening. The local newspaper was there and a radio station, but this was no big surprise to me. When I saw the first television crew, I started to get excited. That evening turned out to be one of the key moments in my life. My sponsor presented me a One Million Dollar Sponsor contract to be completed over a ten-year period. Part of the deal was that the company was to use my name and create a logo for a Reinhild Möller clothing line. Overnight I had no money problems any more and my own clothing collection.
The ten years passed and the company did not honor the contract.
The company kept the contract for only two years, and then went into bankruptcy. Nevertheless, I was once looked at as a millionaire.
To be continued.....
