18 months to live to Winter Paralympic history

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. The Winter Paralympics get underway this weekend in Italy and history will be made. Davy Zyw was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 30 and given 18 months to live. But now he's 38 and he's going to be the first person to compete at a Winter Olympics with MND. A career in snowboarding was snatched away from him due to a knee injury when he was younger. But in a poetic full circle moment, he's going to get his chance to compete on the board for Team GB. Today, Davey joins us from Cortina to share his story. Welcome to The Sports Agents.

0:47The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Hi, Davey. Welcome to The Sports Agents. Gabby, it is a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. You are in Cortina, ready to go for the Paralympics. And we are very, very excited to see another fantastic few weeks of sport. We just loved winter sport this year. I think it's been amazing for people. But your story is so unique. You are going to be the first British Paralympian to compete with MND. and I should declare an interest in your story because we cycled together in Ireland. Well, you were way ahead of me and racing up the hills when we were involved in a My Name's Doddy cycle last year.

1:33And I think it was not long after that that Kenny was telling me about your ambition to be the first person to compete for Great Britain with MND. But there is a history to you and winter sports, isn't there? So let's go back to you as a young lad snowboarding. Yeah, so thank you, Gabby. So my relationship with snowboarding and the slope started at a very young age. I started skiing, in fact, but I quickly made the transfer from two planks over to one. And I learned at the Hill End Dry Slope, which is an artificial facility on the hill just to the south of Edinburgh with my twin brother, Tommy.

2:17I didn't have quite the same interest, I suppose, in ball sports like all my friends did growing up. And I was drawn to the creativity and the culture and the airtime and the adrenaline of snowboarding. And it's something I took very seriously throughout my teens and into my early 20s. By the time I left school at 16, my sole aim was to go away snowboarding and try to become professional I got quite close, I was never the best but I had a few sponsors I used to compete nationally and internationally and it was a lifestyle I just adored, living in the mountains bouncing around, going from competition to competition but a knee injury took me out of the game in my early 20s and propelled me into a career in the wine trade Yes, and you became very expert in that and had a very successful career, have had a very successful career.

3:16But life gave you something you were not expecting and a diagnosis that is one that nobody wants to hear at the age of 30. That's it, Gabby. I had the best part of 10 years into my career in wine and living in London. And I came back from a snowboard holiday with a strange symptom. I had a bit of paralysis in my left thumb, which I was going to blame on the cold or too much IPA in British Columbia. Yeah. But no, I came back and saw my my local GP in West London. And he said, I see two of you guys a week. You know, you come in, you do too many press ups, too many pull ups, too much gym. And you've given yourself carpal tunnel syndrome, which is, you know, very common injury, which I, you know, I sort of shrugged off and thought, OK, that's fine.

4:12And then that led to a series of events. I was pinballed around different specialists, medical specialists around London. And the diagnosis is a process of elimination. And it took the best part of a year to lift up that last stone. And that last stone was the stone we wanted to look under and least. And of course, that was motor neuron disease. I had no very little understanding of what the disease was. Very little reference at the time. I mean, Stephen Hawking, the great Stephen Hawking, Professor Hawking, was probably the only reference point at the time. And this is, you know, it was only, it wasn't, what, you know, less than a year after, you know, Alfred Doddy was diagnosed with the condition.

4:58So I had no reason to expect the severity or the gravity of this diagnosis. And, of course, at the time, it was an impossible, improbable situation. You know, the fact, you know, Gabby, the facts are, you know, a third of people die within one year. most people die within two to three years um so i had to make some very hard life choices and ask myself some pretty difficult questions um at the point of diagnosis which um is just i've got a opinion for myself today you know i'm almost eight years in living with a condition and i've yes i have my challenges but in fact i'm i've got a full life i've got yeah i've got challenges day to day with my disease which is of course only getting worse but i've just fought myself up the ladder in the Paralympics GB team.

5:45And here I am sat in Cortina. It's a dream come true to compete for Great Britain at such a huge championships, I'm sure. But it is bittersweet because of how things have evolved for you in your life. But you have such a positive attitude, Davy, in terms of going for it and deciding you're going to live every single day, which really mirrors Doddy in the way he kind of embraced the challenges that he had. And I know it must have been in a way to have had him raising the profile of motor neurone disease and saying this is just ridiculous that this disease has had no advancements in its cures for so many decades and it's time to make a change there.

6:24Was that for you inspirational, being such a huge kind of sporting hero in Scotland as he was, that he could kind of just open people's minds up a little bit to the disease? Gabby, absolutely. Of course, my life changed at the point of diagnosis, but my life changed again my horizons were lifted when I met Doddy I met him at he did a Melrose cycle fundraiser every summer in fact it still continues today but only a few months after my diagnosis I went to the cycle and I met Doddy and he was there standing tall at the end welcoming and cheering all the cyclists and I said, hello, my name is David, and I have motorimmune disease, and he gave me this ginormous bear hug.

7:16I was lost somewhere in his midriff, of course, and from that moment on, we became very close friends, and he gave me all the support and all the contacts with all the medical support and everything that he had been challenged with because he wasn't getting the right service level from his doctors and professors at the time, everything that happened outside of that outside of his hospital appointments he passed on to me and it was the best advice I've received at the time living with the condition and what he has managed what he did and what he has managed to have done raising the profile, raising the awareness and he's raised the horizons for everybody with immune disease or ALS as they call it in the states worldwide there's no options, no solutions when Dottie and myself were diagnosed.

8:10And of course, now there's 70 clinical trials happening worldwide and 10 of them are happening in the UK. And a lot of them are directly funded by the My Name's Dottie Foundation. Of course, I've become a huge ambassador for the charity and it's a great honour to carry on Dottie's fight. You've mentioned that you were told you might have 18 months to live And obviously here you are almost eight years or so later embarking on something that is so physical and difficult that even people who are at the peak of their fitness are going to find this a huge challenge. So just explain to us how your condition and how your symptoms have changed since the start.

8:52Where is your body finding things the hardest? What is happening to your body at the moment? So you know, generally when I was first diagnosed, the MD was generally manifested itself worse in my hands and arms. You see, I've got, you know, I'm like when you draw a stick man in a notebook. That's how I look at my upper body now, unfortunately. I've got very little cushion and muscle in my torso, my neck, my hands and my arms. And although I've got strength in certain places, I've got no muscle mass in others. So I've got very little strength and dexterity in my upper body. And the MMD now, I mean, it's all over my body now.

9:32Of course, I can train hard. And I think, you know, yes, my attitude towards it, keeping fit, you know, drinking good wine, keeps some of the progressive nature of the disease out of bay. But the reality is that I've just got muscles which are just dropping off me. So I need to work extra hard to keep what I do have. functional you're still you're still walking oh no absolutely i'm still walking i'm still cycling i can still i'm running i can still i can still run uh but what i like do best is of course snowboarding but as you said gabby it's physical my goodness um and of course i grew up snowboarding yes this um and i used to compete to a certain level but the the racing which i'm doing now is a whole different ball game from um from the snowboarding i've done before it's a lot more demanding it's a lot more physical it's a lot more detailed um and the nature of the course is every run for me and if i get down and run you know i am it's full gas i i need a rest i need a rest at the bottom because it's a very demanding environment um where i struggle the most i suppose it's against my competitive set and i've got a caveat as well every competitor every friend of mine on the course these are incredible human beings who have got their own physical challenges of course mine my stories with mmg but you know the guys next to me in the starting lineup may have been in car accidents or a shark attack or had troubles at birth you know every inspirational inspiring group of people to ride against just to be clear about the classification you will be against people who've got what they call a static injury so they may have been born without an arm or a hand or part of either of those.

11:15But those injuries won't necessarily be deteriorating. The difference with you is your condition is degenerative. And this is really critical, I think, because this time last year when I was getting into the competitive circuit, I was stronger than I am now. And yeah, I've been accredited, all my fellow competitors, but I suppose even the guys with one arm, their one arm is like Duhan Randemer. You know, they're big guys and they can pull out a lot quicker. So I'm probably one of the weakest in terms of physicality on the circuit, which means I need to work to my strengths on course, which is, of course, more the technical side of snowboarding.

11:58And of course, you will be susceptible to things that they aren't, for example, in terms of the fatigue. You mentioned the tiredness, the muscle cramping, because your muscles are degenerating. That's the nature of the disease and the cold, I imagine it's actually the worst thing probably for your muscles, is it? Exactly. If you're going to write an environment, which is probably going to exacerbate my symptoms, being in a physically demanding environment in the cold. These are the two main things. So absolutely, it's muscle cramps. As soon as I'm cold, I start to lock up and cramp up. So all these nuances I've got to manage in my pre-warm up.

12:37and of course when I'm delivering on my race as well. And how hard was it then, because you are the first Paralympian for Great Britain to compete with MND, how hard was it to kind of get yourself considered when you didn't necessarily fit a classification that was obvious to start off with? It was a bizarre situation because no one with MMD, no British athlete with MMD has competed in the winter or summer Paralympics, Paralympics but I'm the first person ever to compete in a winter Paralympics with MMD so I had to go through this slightly strenuous medical examination which was a bittersweet situation Gabby because on one hand I wanted to make sure I was disabled enough to be classifiable as a para-athlete but of course the reality is I don't want to be disabled at all I don't even want to be here uh and so it was it was an odd you know it was an odd sort of emotional conflict going into this um and you know into this medical examination but the reality is they are used to seeing people with static injuries as you say or or amputees or people without limbs so they had to do an extra sort of detailed analysis of um of my symptoms and look at the progressive nature of my symptoms and then that they fitted me into the upper limb classification there's three classifications in para snowboard one is is people with upper limb um challenges and then ll1 ll2 are people with lower limb challenges and how does it feel tell us when you are in the middle of you know that snowboarding racing experience how mentally freeing is it to be you know when you hit the the kind of the zone or you feel you're in the flow what does it feel like i mean gabby it's the you know it's the freedom when I'm in the zone when in the competitive set when I'm in that starting gate uh there's such freedom in there you know of course I've had to work so hard um to get to this position where I am now uh and I still I've been in Cortina not less than a week now uh but it still seems like uh you know I'm still in a dreamlike state but when I'm snowboarding when I'm in that mind zone, you know, MMD may be the reason I'm here.

14:55It's the reason that I'm in the Paralympics, but it couldn't be further from my mind at the time. It's that free flow state of the adrenaline, the focus, and having fun in its purest form. I've always loved snowboarding, and there's such a tragic beauty, the fact that this incurable neurological disease has brought me back to my childhood dream of being a snowboarder. Yeah, there's something kind of so romantic and yet just tragic that that is what has had to happen to get you here. But you're doing it with such grace and a smile and inspiration to, you know, to everybody else with that diagnosis to keep pushing their physical boundaries.

15:36And not everybody can, but you are. And I think, you know, you will accrue a lot of fans, I'm sure, Davey, over the next few weeks when the British public starts to know more about your story. tell us are your family coming out there is your wife oh she must be incredibly proud are they are they going to be there cheering for you yeah and thank you so much Gabby yeah I've got I've got a I've got an incredible amount of support coming over from from home and friends from overseas I'm lucky enough I work in Italy a lot I've got a family in Italy so there I've got friends from Borolo and Tuscany coming up to spectate I've got a friend from Champagne as well so there there should be wine on hand at the finish line.

16:17Everybody wants to be your friend in the Paralympic village, don't they? Everybody wants to be Davy's friend, I'm sure. I mean, in terms of the wine, that is definitely going to be, your little cabin or wherever you're staying is going to be well equipped. It's going to be a party cabin at the end of the game, when the racing's done, at least. Yeah, of course. No, Gabby, but my wife and son are coming out, and it's been, particularly for my son, he'll be five next month, it's been the greatest sacrifice I've had over the last year is the time away, the time spent training and competing with the Paralympic GB team around the world and he knows I go away snowboarding but he didn't really understand the end game, the end dream was to get to the Paralympic games because of course up until a few weeks ago I didn't know if I made the selection so to see their faces at the bottom of the finish line is going to make all that sacrifice worthwhile and of course they'll be joined by my parents my brothers including my twin brother and a lot of friends coming over from Scotland and of course every minute you spend away you're mindful of the fact that your time with him is going to be limited anyway and I'm sure that was a huge sacrifice but for him these will be memories that he will at five he will take through his life he will never forget this experience that you've given him and you're right I'm so acutely aware With my young son We've got a challenge We've got dark There's going to be some dark times ahead of us as a family And Being away from him so much this last year It's been the greatest burden to carry But you know To be To enjoy this experience together As a family And to see his dad on the grandest of stages I think this is going to be something he's going to cherish forever and I hope to do him proud.

18:25It's been another varied weekend on The Sports Agents. On Tuesday we spoke to Barney Ronay from The Guardian. He's their chief sports writer about what is going on in the Middle East and how that will have some impact on this summer's World Cup in the USA. You know, football shouldn't be here, but it is because it has insisted on being there. You know, Gianni Infantino has dragged us into this room, has said, I will align myself so closely with the President Donald Trump, not even the country, but one specific divisive political movement in that country. The football has been forced to become part of his publicity machine because of Infantino's actions.

19:03Football also has blood on its hands in this because it has been forced into the room. and is part of his machine. And then on Thursday, Alex Payne, presenter of The Good, The Bad and The Rugby, came on to talk all things Six Nations with Steve Borthwick pressing the panic button and making nine changes to England's line-up against Italy. Is this make or break for England's head coach? Who is the absolute standard bearer of this team? I wouldn't be drawing a line through George Ford in any way, shape or form. It's worth remembering almost the best performance of that 12-game winning run, judge it as you will against Wales.

19:35But George Ford came off the bench to really sort of take England from 30 to 70 or whatever it was. I don't think he is egotistical in any way, shape or form. I think the value he brings from a rugby internet point of view is still hugely valuable for an 18-month run into a World Cup. And what's it like to set up a brand new football team? We spoke to Nick Cushing, ex-Manchester City women and New York City men's manager, who's done just that. We're really lucky here in Denver. We sold 15 ,000 season tickets before we even named a coach or a player. Wow. So there is an incredible energy and an incredible enthusiasm for, you know, Denver is really ready for a professional women's sports team.

20:12A wider ownership group with the likes of Melody Hobson, CEO of Ariel Investments, the Coors family. To have the opportunity to have the ear of Peyton Manning, you know, two-time Super Bowl winner, the most MVPs in NFL history. Michaela Schifferin, the most decorated alpine skier and a Denver native, you know, three gold medals, five world championships. To have the ability to use their knowledge and experience and get their advice has been incredible for me, will be something that I will consistently draw on. It is a superpower for our team, for our players, for our staff, and something that has been a very unique experience for me in growing this team.

20:52And with it being International Women's Day this weekend, I'm delighted to say that World Rugby's Women's Player of the Year for 2025, Sophie de Goody, joins us next week. and that's it for another week on The Sports Agents. If you've been listening to this on the News Agents feed, just search for The Sports Agents to listen to those episodes in full on YouTube, Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, if you can, to hit subscribe or follow. And keep getting in touch with us on email, thesportsagentsatglobal.com or social media or via the link in the show notes. We've got new episodes for you every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

21:24Thanks for listening.

21:33This has been a Global Player original production.