The talented youngster, Mackenzie Griffith,  talks skiing for Great Britain and building a budding career in TV

Moseley’s Mackenzie Griffith has had a lot of barriers to overcome growing up. That elite para-skiing was on at all is testament to Mackenzie’s plucky spirit and obvious talent but also their parents’ determination to give Mackenzie all the opportunities that their older able-bodied daughter enjoyed.

Born at 23 weeks, Mackenzie has cerebral palsy with hemiplegia on their right side which affects muscle tone and strength from head to toe. Mackenzie says they were treated the same as their able-bodied sister who was five years older, so they just got on with it.

Mackenzie describes their parents as ‘absolutely ski mad’. Mum grew up in Switzerland, so skiing was part of life, and dad started skiing in his teens. Mackenzie says: “I started skiing aged three. I learnt to go aged three and to stop age six!” Between the ages of seven and 11 Mackenzie skied on a dry slope and competed in able-bodied competitions.

They became disillusioned and stopped for a while as it was nigh on impossible to be as competitive as they wanted to be as they grew older. Mackenzie skied recreationally with the family, but after the Sochi Games in 2015, Mackenzie’s dad said, “I think Mac could do that.” This set in motion a journey to elite para sport that was both brilliant and frustrating.

MENTAL CHALLENGE

A talent ID day followed where a development coach from the elite para set-up watched Mackenzie ski. He had a chat with Mackenzie afterwards and said that whatever the goal, they could achieve it. Mackenzie’s dream of competing at the Paralympics was on. Training in Manchester on a Tuesday evening became the norm and in November 2015 Mackenzie travelled to the Netherlands to be assessed and was given a classification to compete in.

There were challenges with the GB set-up and the sheer number of hours on the snow teamed with gym work was a lot and Mackenzie fatigued quicker than some of the others. As with all elite sport, the mental challenges were great including sacrificing birthdays, weddings and the like. For eight years Mackenzie’s life was skiing. Mackenzie’s school, Edgbaston High School was very supportive, and the headmistress encouraged their training and competition. In the end Mackenzie was at school 50 per cent of time and ended up achieving 10 GCSEs and one A-Level which is remarkable.

GOLD MEDAL

The first year of para sport in Alberta, Canada was ‘brilliant’. Having been in a minority their whole life up to this point, Mackenzie was in the majority in this environment. There were prosthetic limbs lying around and wheelchairs everywhere. Mackenzie recalls: “I was no longer self-conscious. We’d laugh and tease one another. In one of my first races, I won the youth gold medal. I used the arm of the silver medallist to help get on to the podium and I pulled a bit too hard. She fell off and ended up on the floor!”

When Mackenzie flew back to Canada for another season, it was a non-starter. They lost their passport, sprained their foot and the programme was cancelled for a number of reasons. Within a week Mackenzie had gone from a massive high to a huge low. Getting emergency travel documents so they could fly home was a mission. Mentally, Mackenzie felt they couldn’t go back out to train and compete. They say: “The plan was to stay at home for three weeks then head to Salt Lake City in Utah, but mentally I wasn’t up to it.” While it was a tough decision to take, Mackenzie doesn’t regret a thing and cherishes the lifelong friends they made. It also allowed Mackenzie to pursue a different avenue of work.

Throughout the pandemic Mackenzie started to get more interested in TV and broadcasting. They joined Late Night Lycett for six weeks as a trainee and say Joe was ‘a dream and as down to earth as you’d expect’. Mackenzie has applied to be a level 4 production co-ordinator on Masterchef which is now filmed in Birmingham. At the time of writing, Mackenzie had gone straight through to the second round of which there are five. Psychometric testing is up next. We’ve everything crossed!