Name:
Gal Jakič

Nicknames:
G.
//morpheus7
The Sled Dawg

Date and place of birth:
January 7th 1989, Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Heigth:
195-ish centimeters (6 ft 5 in)

Weight:
70 kilograms (155 lbs)

Gal Jakič was born on 7th of January in Ljubljana, Slovenia. As a kid, he fell in love with sports. He trained tennis, basketball, swimming and track & field athletics, his first athletic training being held on September 11th, 2001.

At the age of 13, he suffered from a spinal stroke which overnight remade the athlete to a baby. He was unable to sit, stand or walk, control his bladder and bowel and became dependent of others. To move around he had to use the wheelchair. Gal Jakič returned to sports shortly thereafter. Failing to see any passion in the games of wheelchair basketball and disabled track & field, he chose adaptive alpine skiing - relatively unknown to Slovenia at the time, the fastest disabled sports there is, with adaptive ski racers reaching speeds up to 100 km/h and beyond. He became a member of Slovenia Paralympic Ski Team in 2005, earning himself the spot on Torino 2006 and Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games Teams along with several top finishes in national and international events all over the World. His ultimate goal is to bring home a Paralympic medal from Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games. In the 2009/10 season he first joined the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) Alpine Ski Team, the best adaptive ski team in the World and has been training with them full-time since, which in effect requires me to move from Slovenia to USA every winter. In season 2010/11, Gal has achieved his first top level international podium result with a 2nd place at the Park City Huntsman Cup NorAm (North American Continental Cup) slalom. In 2010, Gal started parakayaking in the K1 200m Flat Water Sprint. He is now a member of Slovene National Flat Water Team, with parakayaking being the summer counterpart to skiing, presenting a great way of fitness as well as keeping the competitive edge going all year long. He hopes to keep flat water racing & making the Slovene Paralympic Team when parakayaking will be presenting itself on global stage at Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. In 2011, Gal decided to become an extreme adaptive athlete and promote adaptive sport through extreme projects. Along with a friend, Marin Medak, he has attempted to set the record in K2 (double kayak ) paddling the coast of Croatia in July of 2011 – 310 miles in 7 days, paddling for 12 hours a day, while raising money for a Slovene charity organization KROS. Due to bad weather, the double-man team had to change course, making the trip almost a 100 miles longer. After paddling for 9 days, covering the distance of 310 miles the project, dubbed Mini Summer Adventure, had to be terminated just a day short of their finish line due to Gal's pressure sore that required immediate surgery. Still, Gal hopes it has been the first of many extreme adaptive projects he does to promote adaptive sport. When Gal is not skiing, paddling or doing something slightly crazy, he is the first generation disabled student athlete at Ljubljana's Faculty of Sports, working toward a degree in kinesiology. Gal lives between his first home in Ljubljana, Slovenia and his second home in Winter Park, Colorado, USA trying to push the limits of his body to the maximum. In his spare time he designs websites, does computer programming, sports photography, motivational speaking, lectures and presentations of adaptive sport, runs a beginner sit-ski camp and volunteers as a football coach at a semi-professional team Ljubljana Silverhawks.He is also a full-time boyfriend, brother, son and grandson as well as trying to be a good friend and promoter of adaptive sport through actions, talks and lectures.

(Yeah, talk about busy ... !)