Melissa Perrine

Melissa Perrine (born 21 February 1988) is a B2 Classified visually impaired para-alpine skier from Australia.

Melissa Perrine was born in Nowra, New South Wales, on 21 February 1988.

In 2007, the Wingecarribee Council area named her their Young Australian of the Year.

She first skied with her sighted guide Andy Bor in 2009 in competition at the IPC North America Cup in Colorado, where she finished second in the super-G.

She was back on the slopes by the end of the 2009/2010 skiing season, and competed in the 2010 World Cup in Aspen, Colorado.

She earned a silver medal and a pair of bronze medals at the event.

She has competed at the four Winter Paralympics from 2010 to 2022.

She was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's X Paralympic Games in March 2010.

She was born with four separate eye conditions, including cataracts, nystagmus, micropthalmia and glaucoma.

Her eyesight has been slowly deteriorating since she was very young.

Her vision is limited to blurry shapes and colours.

, she lives in Welby, New South Wales, and is studying Exercise Science at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney.

She was officially named on the Australian 2010 Winter Paralympics team in November 2009.

Alongside Jessica Gallagher, she was one of two women named to the team.

It was only the second time Australia sent women to the Winter Paralympics.

A ceremony was held in Canberra with Australian Paralympic Committee president Greg Hartung and Minister for Sport Kate Ellis making the announcement.

At a 2010 World Cup event in Italy ahead of the Paralympics, Perrine fractured the ischium bone in her hip as a result of a fall.

She returned to Australia.

Perrine and the rest of Australia's Para-alpine team arrived in the Paralympic village on 9 March 2010 for the 2010 Winter Paralympics.

While at the Games, she competed in the Downhill, super-G, super combined and giant slalom events.

She finished seventh in the visually impaired super-G, approximately 12.54 seconds behind gold medal-winning Slovak skier Henrieta Farkasova.

She did not finish in the super combined event.

Following her first run in the Super G, she was in sixth place, but she did not finish her second run and did not place.

She and Bor finished fifth in the 2139 m downhill.

In 2011, she completed a Bachelor of Exercise Science followed by a Master of Exercise Science in 2012 at the Australian Catholic University.

She completed a Master of Physiotherapy at Western Sydney University.

Perrine is a B2 Classified visually impaired skier.

She gets direction on the course from a guide who uses a microphone and speakers to communicate with her on the course.

At the 2011 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships, with Bor as her guide, Perrine won a silver medal in the vision-impaired downhill event, the first one ever earned by an Australian woman at the event.

She also earned bronze medals in the women's vision impaired Super Combined and super-G events.

At an August 2011 competition in Mt Hutt, New Zealand, she finished first in the women's super G visually impaired event.

At the Winter Games IPC event at Coronet Peak that same month, she and Bor finished first in the women's slalom visually impaired event.

At the 2012 World Cup event in Italy, Perrine finished third in the slalom while skiing with Bor.

She won a silver medal in the giant slalom.

At the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Perrine competed in five events.

She finished fourth in the women's downhill visually impaired and did not finish in three events.

She was disqualified after the slalom leg of the Women's Super Combined for wearing a visor which was taped to her helmet in order to keep rain from her goggles.

This was a breach of the IPC Alpine Skiing rules.

At the 2015 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships, she won three gold, one silver and one bronze medals.

At the 2018 Winter Paralympics, she won two bronze medals.