Andrea Eskau, a German Paralympic athlete, is the best in the world at what she does. Road cycling gold in Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro along with biathlon and cross-country skiing gold in Sochi proves it.
Over the last five years, Toyota Motorsport GmbH has played a crucial role in Eskau’s success. It designed the double gold medal-winning Sochi sled and are now using cutting-edge technology to do the same for the upcoming Winter and Summer games in PyeongChang and Tokyo, respectively.
“Physically I quickly developed a high level of performance,” Eskau explained in a statement. “But I realized that equipment is immensely important for at such a professional level. At some point you simply cannot go further with pure training.”
Toyota’s main focus in creating the new sled for Eskau was weight reduction. For this they used carbon fiber which would have the desired effect while not reducing sturdiness. Ultimately, it resulted in a 30 percent weight decrease that left less mass for Eskau to propel using her upper body.
“We started the process by exchanging ideas and possibilities,” Eskau explained. “The first step was a sled adapted for me by TMG which brought me two gold medals at the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi. Going even further, TMG was willing to build an entire new sledge this year for me, which is even lighter, more functional and suits my needs even more than the old one. This means I can also focus on biathlon with the difficult shooting discipline; it allows me now to shoot without technical limitations.”
In 2016, Nissan designers worked with Paralympic cycling gold medalist David Stone MBE in a similar manner. Engineers worked to reduce the weight of Stone’s trike creating 18 percent reduction.