Berry Bros. & Rudd buyer Davy Zyw has launched his bid to be the first person with motor neurone disease (MND) to compete at the Winter Paralympics. Zyw, who has been the UK’s oldest fine wine and spirits merchant’s senior buyer for Champagne and Italy since October 2017, was diagnosed with the little-understood neurological disease aged only 30, but has repeatedly demonstrated his determination to take on some incredible challenges. Having been a competitive snowboarder in his teens and early twenties before sustaining a serious knee injury, Zyw is now hoping to qualify as the first Paralympic athlete with MND from the UK in any sport and the world’s first Winter Paralympian with the disease at the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. (Rower Nick Scandone competed in the Paralympic Games in 2008 with MND, while curler Cathy Cummins was an alternate on the US team in Sochi 2014, according to Planetski.com). Road to the games The signs for Zwy so far are good – he won two silver medals for banked slalom at the FIS Para Snowboard event in Dubai, and finishing 12th at a second event in that same week in Landgraaf in the Netherlands, competing against paralympic winners from Beijing. He will need to earn enough points over the coming season to qualify for the FIS Para Snowboard World Cup series – a series of tightly contested Parasport World Cup races – and will need to be in the top 15
This Article was originally published on The Drink Business - Champagne
