Andrea Eskau

Andrea Eskau is a German Paralympic athlete who competes as a handbiker, a biathlete and a cross-country sit skier. She was born in Apolda on 21 March 1971 and became a paraplegic in 1998 after a bicycle crash on her way to school broke several vertebrae and left her a wheelchair user. She won gold at the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, was a cross-country sit-skiing winner at the 2013 IPC Nordic Skiing World Championship, and at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro took gold in the H5 road race and bronze in the H4-5 time trial. At her third Winter Paralympics in 2018 she won gold in both the 10 km and 12.5 km sitting biathlon. Her career is unusual for spanning both summer and winter Paralympic programmes.