02.06.2009

Dancing in the dark no hurdle for Gosens

For three-time Paralympic athlete Gerrard Gosens, swimming with the sharks is nothing compared to dancing with the stars.  

Gosens, who placed sixth in the final of the men’s 1500m (T11) at the Beijing Paralympic Games last year and is a three-time Australian Paralympic representative, is just weeks away from his small screen debut on Dancing with the Stars.

With appearances at the IPC athletics world championships, world marathon championships, Melbourne Marathon 10km and Gold Coast Marathon 10km already under his belt, there seems little the adventurous Queenslander is yet to achieve.

But for Gosens, the biggest test is yet to come.

When series nine of Dancing with the Stars hits the air next month it will be the first time the adventurer, who has also swum with sharks and climbed Mt Everest, takes to a dance floor.

"This is the most terrifying thing I have ever done," Gosens told the The Daily Telegraph.

"I've always stayed off the dance floor because, as you can appreciate, a totally blind person can't make out their surrounds.

"There's a lot of trust in this, but my dance partner and I have already developed some tricks."

The 29-year-old Brisbane resident will be the third disabled personality in the world to feature on Dancing with the Stars after single leg amputee Heather Mills tripped the light fantastic in 2007 and Academy Award winning actress Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, participated in the US version last year.

And Gosens is in it to win it.

"The other competitors can look in the mirror and get their position to see if they look good, I can't do that,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“To put it into perspective, it took me 30 years to know that an elephant was hairy because all the figurines are smooth. It's been like that with dancing.”

A self-proclaimed ‘life junkie’, Gosens said he hoped to challenge some of the common attitudes towards people with a disability through his involvement in the show.  

"It's more than blind faith. I want to challenge a few perceptions.

“It would be great if one day science gives me the ability to replay this and I can see what I've done. It's coming along in leaps and bounds but just to be able to see my kids and even myself would be incredible."

Gosens dedicated his run at last year’s Paralympic Games to the father-in-law he lost in a glider accident on the eve of the event.

In 1996 he was selected to the Australian goalball team for the Atlanta Paralympic Games before making the switch to track and field, breaking the national 5000m and 10,000m records en route to appearances at the Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.