Welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have discussions with individuals who are building
accessible businesses or products advocating for inclusion or excelling in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities, but rather to amplify
their voice, ideas, and learn strategies to scale our impact and help other businesses
become more accessible.
Today we are joined by Jaden Molvold from New Zealand, who is an elite Paralympic athlete
and a member of many committees that strive for a more accessible future.
Jayden, thanks for joining us today.
Thank you for inviting me.
I'm excited to have a chat.
I think I will allow you to give a little bit of a background, who you are, what you compete
in, and then we'll dive into some more details.
We did a bunch of research on some of your athletic career, but I'll let you give a little
bit of insight into who you are as an athlete and an individual.
Yeah, sure.
So, as you said, my name is Jaden.
I am from New Zealand.
I am a competitive wheelchair racer.
I've actually been involved with sports for most of my life.
I've done basketball, hand cycling, triathlons, gymnastics.
I was a competitive swimmer for many years, and then in 2019 I switched from being a competitive
swimmer to now being a competitive wheelchair racer, where I currently hold numerous New
Zealand records, and I've competed overseas, and I hope to one day reach the Paralympics.
2028 is my goal, so a training hard for that.
But besides my sports, I'm also quite heavily involved within my community.
I'm on a range of national committees advocating for disability rights and for more inclusion
within a disability space and within a wider national space as well.
Yeah, so that's me.
How did you first get introduced to sports, or did you have people that represented your
disability in sports that you looked up to?
Did you have friends that competed?
What was your introduction to swimming or whatever sport you initially started with?
Yeah, so I have been involved with sports.
So I've seen sports from a very, very young age.
My parents were involved with sports, so they kind of got me into it.
But then also watching it on the Paralympics, it was a huge motivator for me.
I remember going to the 2012, well when the 2012 Paralympics happened and the team came
back into New Zealand, I remember going to the airport and welcoming them in and seeing
their gold medals and seeing all of their achievements and watching them on TV, and it
kind of inspired me that, hey, I could one day do this.
And so that's when I was like, actually, let's make this reality.
And that's when I got into my swimming, or I continued my swimming or pushed really
hard in my swimming.
And then I found wheelchair racing.
And yeah, I guess from seeing the Paralympics from a young age really inspired me to push
for that goal.
What led you to kind of switch from swimming predominantly to wheelchair racing?
Yeah, so swimming, for me, I kind of lost the passion.
I mean, there was a little bit of classification issues.
I was put in a tougher class of sport, in a higher classification than I probably should
have, which made it a little bit hard to compete internationally.
And then I found wheelchair racing.
And I was like, actually, this is a sport that I can really, really enjoy.
And so that's when I decided to make the switch.
Do you have a specific distance that you seem to excel most at, or that you enjoy the most?
Yeah, so for wheelchair racing, for those that don't know, you normally do 100 up to
marathons.
So you do basically everything.
For me, I prefer the long distance.
So the 5000 is my favorite distance.
I tend to do really well in about 800 up.
So about the 5000 and the Half Marathon are my favorite distances to do.
Wheelchair racing as a whole has become more popular in marathon events in the States.
Is it also have a presence in New Zealand races as well and just recreational marathons?
Yeah, unfortunately, not.
Unfortunately, in New Zealand, there's not a lot of wheelchair races.
There's about three or four of us that compete.
And so I have to go overseas to get that competition, whether it be Australia or whether it be
Europe like Switzerland.
There's not really many, or there's no specific wheelchair racing events in New Zealand.
There's no marathon that adjusts wheelchair racing.
But that's why I have to go to Australia and that's why I have to go to Switzerland.
Hopefully one day, hopefully when I go to the pound, or as my career goes on, I can inspire
more people to get into wheelchair racing and we can make it bigger in New Zealand.
But not currently in New Zealand.
It's not that big.
Do you think traditional marathons would let you participate as a wheelchair racer?
Yeah, so in New Zealand, there are a few marathons and some of them have been really inclusive.
Like the Waterfront Half Marathon, I've done that a couple of times.
Some others, it's a struggle, but overall they are quite inclusive and they try to make
it happen, which is quite cool.
But I am getting competing on my own because I am quite faster than the able-bodied in
some respects in some of the races.
And so I am racing on my own.
So that's why I do have to go overseas to get that actual competition.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, it's something where I wonder if sometimes braces not being more inclusive or accessible
is because of concerns from the race directors in terms of safety considerations.
In your sense there, you were mentioning that there's not other competition for you, but
I wonder if you would still be allowed to participate just as the only wheelchair racer.
I don't know if that would incentivize you to do so in any way.
For us, we run for Team Hoyt.
So I run marathons pushing a wheelchair, pushing another individual in a wheelchair, and sometimes
we're the only other wheelchair duo at races.
And sometimes to me that's motivating because I like running against the people that don't
have chairs and competing against them, but it might be a little different situation for
you.
Like you said, the push rims, the elite push rims are going to be faster than most able-bodied
runners.
Yeah.
I mean, there are some events in New Zealand like there's the 5K event, the Night of Fives.
It is an event that I like to do every single year where I am racing the elite, the top
top runners.
There's no wheelchair, I'm the only wheelchair racer that does the 5Ks.
But being able to race the elite is pretty cool because yes, we are sort of, we used
to be sort of around the same speed.
And so at the end it was, you know, who's the fitter so who can get over the line first.
Whereas now it's on can I lack them, how many times can I lack them, which is quite cool.
And yeah, there's one of my favorite events, the 5K Night of Fives in New Zealand.
Going back to the inclusiveness, most of them are inclusive and I do get to race them, which
is quite cool.
Do you know who or will New Zealand have anyone representing them at like Paris 2024, do you
think in wheelchair racing?
Unfortunately not.
I think most of us who do wheelchair racing are aiming for 2028.
The qualifying times for wheelchair racing are really tough.
It's one of the hardest, it is the hardest classification in terms of para athletics.
And so it does take a bit to get those times and you even see guys who are, or guys and
girls who have a really long career, they go into their 30s, their 40s, even somewhere
even in their 50s.
And I'm only 19, so there's not really that much of a rush.
I do believe 2028 is the goal.
2028, I have high hopes for 2028.
Yeah, just not 2024, it's a little bit too close, but definitely 2028 and beyond.
Do you already know what the qualifying process will be like for 2028 or does it change from
year to year?
Yeah, I mean, the times I think potentially could change.
It's highly unlikely.
But in terms of New Zealand selection, I think it is pretty standard.
You've got to make top 20 in the world or top 50 in the world for wheelchair races.
I think I'm not quite sure on that selection at this stage, but it's pretty stock standard.
You've got a certain ranking in New Zealand.
I would say nobody goes to the para Olympics.
And you've also got to make those qualifying times.
Is the location area determined for 2028?
Yeah, so that is in LA, I think.
That was it in the States?
Yeah, it is in the States.
So I'm pretty excited about it.
The States have some awesome marathons.
I really, really want to do one there.
Like the Boston Marathon, that's one of them that I've had my eyes on for since 2019 since
I started.
So I'm excited for that.
I'm in Massachusetts.
So we're about an hour from Boston here, and I'll be running Boston for the first time
this April, so looking forward to that environment.
It'll be awesome.
We always go and watch from mile nine with one of my friends who has Spina Bifida and
is an aspiring wheelchair racer.
And so mile nine, there's a big downhill.
So she always loves seeing the wheelchairs zip by with how fast they're going.
And she's been a huge McFadden fan forever, so it's cool to see them compete.
But do you think your kind of diverse background and various sports contributed to you quickly
becoming successful with wheelchair racing?
Like I would imagine there was a good amount of carryover from swimming to wheelchair racing.
Yeah, definitely.
I think swimming really brought me to that engine.
It brought me that fitness.
It brought me that VO2 mask that I definitely wouldn't have had if I didn't have that prior
experience within swimming and also within my other sports, basketball, hand cycling,
gymnastics, et cetera.
Yeah, definitely having that extra experience has helped me excel more in the sport.
And when I did switch from swimming to wheelchair racing, I wasn't starting from the beginning
in terms of fitness, which really, really helped me to be able to fast track my success.
So you are diagnosed with Spina Bifida.
Would you be able to give the listeners like a little bit of insight into how that presents
for you kind of like symptomatically and how it affects your motor skills and your motility?
Yeah, definitely.
So I have had disability all my life since I was born.
Like you see, it's kind of a spina bifida.
I am paralyzed from the waist down.
I do have a little bit of feeling in my knees and above.
But yeah, I use a wheelchair every day to get around.
And there are a few other medical stuff going on, but paralysis is the main one.
So I have to use a wheelchair to get around in my day to day life.
How did that affect your experience growing up from like a school standpoint?
Yeah, definitely.
It affected me a lot.
I mean, you do have kids who are really inquisitive.
They really like to know what's going on.
If they see something that's really out of the ordinary, they like to ask questions.
And so when I was at school, I used to get a lot of questions.
I used to be bullied for being different.
I mean, everyone's different.
You kind of just have to go with it.
You kind of have to just ignore them, continue on your little trajectory, think about your
goals, think about what you want to achieve and try to push those extra voices to this
side.
But yeah, having a disability, especially when I was younger, was quite challenging.
But I mean, I think it's made me a better person.
It's made me...
I guess that's kind of why I do lots of stuff in the community.
I don't want other people to experience the same things I did when I was younger in terms
of being bullied, being discriminated against.
So all the challenges I did go through have made me a better person.
Yeah, absolutely.
Is there... I would imagine sports provided a really important outlet.
Was it always paralympic or adaptive sports, or were you able to participate in some of
the more, I guess you would call it, traditional sports or just with able-bodied athletes?
Were you able to participate in sports with other populations, or does New Zealand have
a pretty thorough adaptive sports offering?
At school, when I was young, during like, college classes and during school sports, I was with
able-bodied, my able-bodied peers.
And I guess it was quite cool to be able to mix together, although it can present a lot
of challenges, especially a lot of accessibility challenges and how that should run the event.
Personally, I prefer to be with people like me, I prefer to race against people who have
disabilities.
When you talk about able-bodied and disabled together, it can get a bit challenging with
how do you do it.
In New Zealand, I haven't really seen it executed well or really well.
I mean, I've seen it happen a few times when able-bodied and disabled are mixed within
a sporting environment.
But in New Zealand, it is quite separated.
For most of my life, I've just enjoyed being with other people that are like me.
Yeah, and there's definitely reasons.
And like you said, there's probably some confidence and just relationships that you can form with
people that have similar experiences and similar lived experiences that other people can't
necessarily relate to.
What does the typical training look like for you now between time in the chair versus time
in the gym?
Could you maybe break down what a typical week looks like?
Yeah, definitely.
So I either train.
So when I'm in my chair, I either train on my rollers.
So in my garage, my rollers where my chair can sit on and I can push in one spot.
Or I then train on the track.
And I do that maybe five or six times a week.
And then I would have a gym or two gym sessions at the gym with two different structures.
One would be focused more on strength and fitness.
One would and then the other would be focused more on mobility and stretches and flexibility
and that sort of stuff.
During the season, I would spend more time on the track.
Whereas off in the off season, I would spend more time getting my case up in my garage
or my rollers.
Absolutely.
Have you found that the strength training has helped you from like a performance standpoint
or is it specific track sessions that seem to be most beneficial?
Yeah, so more of the strength stuff and the fitness stuff I've really ramped up in probably
the past two months since having this extra instructor or personal trainer.
And so hopefully in the next season, which is in a couple of months, I'll be able to
see a lot of improvement within that.
But yeah, the gym stuff that I do, I do see a lot of improvements within the track.
But the different sessions I do, I do see a lot of progression between the off season
and during the season.
If I do the correct program during the off season, then you definitely do see a lot of
improvement.
Yeah, we'd like to probably assume that if you can increase your strength, then it would
be able to increase the power that you can put into the chair and how long you can sustain
a certain percentage of that power.
So it's definitely a blend of the two.
Have you dealt with any shoulder injuries or have you had to navigate anything from
an injury standpoint?
I've been really lucky in terms of injuries.
I haven't really had many problems with that.
I mean, you'd have a niggle once in a while, but it hasn't really stopped me from still
training.
The things that have stopped me from training would be my hospital visits, would be my surgeries.
I have had a lot of surgeries and a lot of hospital time since starting in 2019.
So health wise, yeah, there have been a lot of issues.
But I mean, not a lot.
Not too much, which is good.
So I haven't lost too much fitness.
But in terms of injuries, not too many.
So I've been really lucky.
And yeah, I hope to keep it that way.
I mean, wheelchair races, wheelchair races, you do get quite a lot of injuries, especially
a lot of short injuries.
But I think if I do the right things in the gym, if I take it easy with my training, don't
overdo it, I think I should be all right.
But even if I do get an injury down the track, I'll just deal with it and create a plan on
how to get back faster.
Yeah, absolutely.
So if a personal trainer, a strength conditioning coach was about to start with a client with
Spina Bifida or a wheelchair user, how do you think they should approach that first session?
Or what would you want to see out of a personal trainer if you're going to them for the first
time?
Yeah, that is a good question.
I mean, I've had a lot of personal trainers over the years, and they're all really different.
My advice would be get to know your person.
That's really, really important.
You don't really want to smash them out in the first session or the first couple of sessions.
You really want to know how does their disability affect them and then make a plan from then
on.
And then also do regular checkups and be like, hey, how is this exercise feel?
Are you sore anyway?
Because you never know.
The person you're dealing with may find something really uncomfortable.
But then also, the biggest advice I'd have is don't be afraid to push it a little bit.
You really want to get the best out of your athlete, and you want to get the most out of
their athlete.
And so just having that communication between both the athlete and the personal trainer is
really, really important.
And don't be scared to push those boundaries because when you push those boundaries, you
get athletes.
Absolutely.
Yeah, we sometimes see two misconceptions.
Maybe is that people think that disability is synonymous with injury.
So they tend to treat those clients like rehab or they try to, they kind of under dose or
they under train them.
And a lot of the stuff that we want to demonstrate is like when people with disabilities have
the proper support that they're able to train just as hard as their non-disabled peers.
So I think you're spot on with that.
But it comes from, like you said, the communication between the coach and the athlete, getting
to know them on a physical level, but also like a social emotional level, like what they're
willing to tolerate.
Not everyone's going to be a Paralympic athlete, but that doesn't mean that their goals are
any less than those that are aspiring for competition.
So one of the, I mean, we see sometimes personal trainers are afraid, if they don't have exposure
to disability, they might be afraid to like say something wrong or do something wrong.
So kind of like easing into that first experience, but I would imagine that most of it can just
be resolved by having conversations.
Yeah, definitely.
And it's also important that it's not just about what you do at the gym.
It's also important what you do in the day to day life.
So whether that's creating a program that can be outside of the gym when they don't have
those sessions.
Because I don't believe one session a week is far enough, people in wheelchairs, they're
already susceptible to hospital visits being very, very exact.
So just continuing your plan outside of the gym is also part of it.
Do you find that most gyms are accessible or inclusive, or if not, what do you think
they need to do to better accommodate people with disabilities?
Yeah, so for me, I've found my personal trainers to other people.
So I've been really lucky, but I have heard stories of people being turned away, especially
those that are part of the blind community.
I've had heard a lot of stories of them not being able to be allowed in the gym.
And I think a way to overcome that is like I was saying, the relationship between the
athlete and the personal trainers, it's also important to have a relationship between the
gym and the athlete on how can we best assist you to get the most out of your fitness goals.
And I think having that communication is quite important.
And having that openness as well is crucial.
And having those first meetings of you have the physical challenges, yes, you may be blind,
but how can we best assist you to achieve your fitness goals?
So openness is quite important.
So you've been introduced directly to organizations that support people with disabilities, but
I would imagine that some people, wheelchair users, other young adults with spina bifida,
they might just assume that gyms aren't for them, or they might be hesitant to go to a
facility where they might not be supported.
So from the gym standpoint, maybe making more of an effort to promote themselves or advertise
themselves as inclusive and accessible.
But it's also understanding, I guess, what you need to do to support people with physical
and intellectual disabilities.
Outside of sports, do you have specific career aspirations or anything that you want to work
on outside of wheelchair racing and the volunteer and the committee work that you do?
Yeah, definitely, so I'm on a number of committees in New Zealand with the main goal of making
a better life for those with disabilities.
And my goals for that is just to continue what I'm doing and hopefully create more opportunities
for people with disabilities to succeed in New Zealand.
And also not just people with disabilities, but also young people or people in general.
There is quite a lot of differences between those with disabilities and those who do not
have a disability in New Zealand.
So just to minimize that gap as much as possible isn't my goal and that's something I'm going
to continue and strive to do for a very long time.
In terms of my career, I am currently at AUT University, Auckland University of Technology
in Auckland in New Zealand and I'm studying psychology.
And with that, I'm hoping to become a psychologist once I complete that and maybe work with young
people that is the main goal.
I can potentially become a sports psychologist.
I'm still working it out.
I'm lonely in my second year, but I think once I continue that and get further on in my degree,
I'll figure that out.
Is that a four-year program?
Is it similar to how the state's structured?
Yes, that's a three-year program actually, but I'm also going part-time because of my
sports, travelling a lot and also having been on all these committees.
So I am going part-time, which will take a little bit longer, maybe five or six years,
but normally it is a three-year program.
Was it switched to remote learning or did you have to deal with some of that stuff with
COVID or were you still in high school, I guess, at the beginning of the pandemic?
Yes, like I said, I was in high school at the beginning of the pandemic and I did have
a lot of remote work at home, which was a little bit challenging.
I think that I've heard a lot of other students probably struggle a little bit more than me,
but it was quite challenging being at home.
I think it made us better, it allowed us to adapt and I think if it were to happen again,
it would be way better at it.
Ultimately, what do you want our listeners to know, I guess, about adaptive sports or
supporting athletes with disabilities in general?
What can we do to make both fitness and sport more accessible and inclusive?
Do you have any specific recommendations or thoughts?
Yes, a couple of things.
The first one is just to keep in mind that not every athlete is the same and that nobles
when you have someone with a disability, so get to know your athletes, encourage them
as much as possible, push them as much as possible, but also understand their limitations
and also understand how their disability affects them.
Fitness is really important and with having a disability, it becomes even more important
and so we really need to push for what we need to promote fitness for people with disabilities,
we need to talk to people with disabilities and see how we can get them involved within
our programs, how we can improve their quality of life, but I think fitness does that.
It's just finding a way to reach those people.
Another issue that I have found especially within New Zealand is there are these extra
barriers that aren't really being addressed as much as they can be, whether that be accessibility
such as transport or other general costs like maybe gym costs, costs to do the sports and
so there are many ways on how to limit those challenges whether it be grants, scholarships,
funding opportunities is also quite important.
Once you get rid of those things, especially the transport subjects, transport is quite
difficult especially if you have a family with people with disabilities and you only
have one parent which is really common to have those extra grants that they can access
but that will increase the opportunities and you'll probably get more people being involved
with them than as gyms etc.
You're working on one of the committees for, was it capital projects for accessibility?
Or open transport.
Yeah, what does that consist of or what does that focus on?
So that committee focuses on how can we make open accessible and whether that's a classroom,
whether it's general buildings, capital projects, so there's two different types of committees
or there's two different committees.
I'm on the one that's about infrastructure so how can we make our buildings that we're
planning on making, how can we make them as accessible as possible so that when they are
built we're not going to make as many changes as we potentially may have to make a biotech
in the other building.
So that great focus is mainly on infrastructure and free planning.
Are there organizations in New Zealand you mentioned, grants and funding being a barrier?
Are there organizations that provide support for individuals with disabilities to participate
in sports or fitness?
Yeah, there are a few, it could be increased quite a lot, a lot of them provide grants
or maybe sessions or paying coaches.
There's not a lot on funding on how do we get the person from their house to the sporting
place so whether that's with transport there's hardly any on transport whatsoever.
It's mainly in the facility, how do we get in grants so that they can participate, not
how doing it from their house to the sporting facility and that's something that I'm trying
to push within my community.
But yeah, there are quite a lot of grants out there for people with disabilities in
sports but yeah, it can be improved quite a lot.
Even if there are these grants, they seem to be quite long and that's something that
you can get with disabilities.
You've got to fill in absolutely everything about your life to be able to access the money
and so a lot of people just give up at the beginning because they can't leave other
or it's just really, really challenging and they don't have the time to provide all this
evidence and so that's why a lot of our grants are underused.
Yeah, you have to look at accessibility as not just I guess the physical space but everything
else that goes into participating in a program like you said, the transportation and also
the emotional support and the socioeconomic status of the individuals and how that can
be providing a barrier that needs to be addressed.
So those are all important considerations that aren't unique to New Zealand.
I think they're pretty consistent across and we definitely see it in the states here as
well.
But Jaden, looking forward to following along for the next four or five years as you work
your way to 2028 games.
Whether they're coming to the states, maybe we can make our way out that way and if you
find yourself at the Boston Marathon you'll have to let me know because we're not far
from there.
You can get a training session in here.
Hopefully I'll be running it as well so I can see you there. But appreciate you taking
the time to talk and sharing your wisdom and your expertise with our audience and I'll
include links to your pages and stuff in the show notes so people can follow along there
if they're interested but again I really appreciate your time and thanks for joining us.
Thank you, I've had a great time and it's been really awesome to talk to you.
You're an awesome guy and it's pretty cool to be able to talk to you and share my journey
and share my story with you all and I've had a great time.