Hello I'm Ricardo Jas, 28 years old and from The Netherlands, in 2008 my left leg is amputated because of bonecancer (osteosarcoom).
It all started when I was playing soccer in January of 2008. I broke my left thigh bone while I was sprinting, no one was around me and it just broke.
After three months, several hospital visits and lots of examinations they found a tumor in my left leg.
After the chemotherapy the doctors decided to amputate my leg, because on the MRI-scans they still see to much tumor cells that they can't take the risk of saving my leg.
After the amputation I had some months of revalidation and they started again with chemotherapy sessions to kill any leftover tumor cells in my body.
So after those 14 months of spending almost every day in the hospital it's finally time to recover and starting a new life with one leg.
While I was in the hospital the doctors asked me what kind of sport I always liked, there where lots of sports I played, but we choose skiing.
Not directly for the competition but first to try this sport again and see if it was possible for me.
After some trying and showing my capabillities they asked me to join a new project "van fundament tot talent". Of course I said, and directly started training at Snowworld (The Netherlands) and also we went on training camps abroad. After a period of training we also started with ski races (SL, GS).
When I was 22 years old I stopped the skiing. This had a number of reasons and the main reason was my private situation. It was a hard decision to stop skiing but I couldn't do this anymore at that moment.
After almost 6 years of quitting, I decided to chase my dream again to join the Paralympic Games for Ski racing in 2026 (Italy).
This time I'm determined more than ever to reach my goal, my situation is ideal and the most important my mindset is positive.
It would be a bumpy road and I have a lot to do after those 6 years but this won't stop me!
Road to Italy, here I am!