Don’t tell Ben Tudhope what he can’t do

The Paralympic snowboarder has spent his life defying expectations. Now he opens up about identity and what the future holds after one of the toughest campaigns of his career

By Cayle Reid

Published: Jun 2, 2026

Ben Tudhope RM Williams — All clothing and accessories by R.M.Williams.

BEN TUDHOPE HAD just pushed himself through the starting gate when he felt his shoulder pop out of its socket. It was his first snowboard cross heat at the 2026 Paralympics, and his shoulder had been giving him trouble all year. He first dislocated it earlier in the World Cup season, but at the time a medical team decided that the pain was manageable, that surgery wouldn’t be required, and that a recurrence was unlikely. Clearly, they were wrong.

Flying down the course at full speed, Tudhope barely had time to process what had happened before needing to return his focus to the race. For 15 agonising seconds, he kept racing with the joint partially displaced before it slipped back into its socket.

The pain was real, even if Tudhope insists the story was exaggerated in the retelling. “The media put a bit of mayo on the story,” he says with a laugh. “It wasn’t fully dislocated and it wasn’t my collarbone or AC joint. The ball popped out and then went back in.”

Still, someone with less conviction would have pulled out of the race. Tudhope went on to win that heat and would come away from the Games as Australia’s only medallist, taking silver in the snowboard cross and bronze in banked slalom – which shouldn’t come as a surprise, because exceeding expectations has been a recurring theme throughout his life.

Ben Tudhope — All clothing and accessories by R.M.Williams.

Tudhope was born with cerebral palsy, which caused hemiplegia on the left side of his body and affects his muscle control and coordination. “My mum and dad were told that I might never be able to walk or talk,” he says. Despite this, they didn’t restrict him. And Tudhope believes that set him on the right path. “The best thing my parents did is treat me as equal and never wrap me in cotton wool,” he says. “They understood that my disability is just something that I have, it’s not my whole identity.”

Growing up in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Tudhope was a long way from any snow. Luckily, he comes from a “crazy, snow obsessed family” who would “do the 10-hour drive from Manly to Mount Hotham all the time.” From there, he followed the lead of one of his older sisters. “My sister was really into snowboarding growing up and I wanted to do whatever she was doing,” he says.

The only problem was that, at first, he wasn’t particularly good at it. “When I first got on a snowboard I was no good. I sucked, actually,” he says. “But I had a passion and a love for it from the very start.”

Practice makes perfect. By 13, Tudhope was competing internationally against athletes years older and physically larger than him. “At my first international comp I was 13 – and I was a tiny 13-year-old,” he says. “Everyone on the tour thought I must have been someone’s younger brother.”

At 14 he became Australia’s youngest-ever Winter Paralympian when he competed at Sochi 2014. For most teenagers, that kind of stage would be overwhelming. Tudhope treated it like the ultimate holiday. “It was pretty surreal,” he says. “I was like a kid in a candy store, really. I was running around doing everything I could. Meeting all these cool athletes.” Discipline, unsurprisingly, wasn’t high on the agenda. “There was a dietician over there, but I was eating all the junk and trying to eat as much pizza as I could.”

There was no burden of expectation then, and Tudhope felt no pressure to finish on the podium. “In the back of my mind, I had the goal of a top ten result, but I wouldn’t be bothered by it if I didn’t achieve that,” he says. “I was just there to experience everything.” He finished tenth.

All clothing and accessories by R.M.Williams.

Things are different now. The 2026 Paralympics in Milano-Cortina were Tudhope’s fourth, and he entered them as a bronze medallist from the previous Games and with a gold medal from the 2023 world championships under his belt. Expectations were higher. “I was the only Australian medallist at the last two Paralympic Games, so there’s more pressure on me now.”

Pressure, however, is something Tudhope is comfortable with. At the end of the day, he wants to be treated as the elite athlete he is. It’s never been good enough just to show up. And he has never wanted his disability to define him. “I think people tend to put people with disabilities into a box,” he says. “They think that we’re dependent on others, that we need help and that we can’t live an active lifestyle. That is completely wrong.

“I don’t want people to just see me as someone who has cerebral palsy and identifies as having a disability,” Tudhope continues. “I’m a snowboarder, and as an elite snowboarder, my disability is something that is part of me, but it doesn’t define me.”

That’s why Tudhope believes the Paralympics are so important. They provide the platform for the disabled community to shine as athletes. “The greatest thing about the Paralympics is that it puts people with disabilities on the world’s stage,” he says. “It shows the world what we’re capable of and what we can achieve.”

R.M.Williams, which has a longstanding relationship with Paralympics Australia, are an example of positive representation for the disabled community in sports, according to Tudhope. “R.M.Williams has been a big supporter of Paralympics Australia for a long time,” he says. “They go above and beyond for diversity and inclusion – and I hate those terms, because they’re such corporate buzzwords, but R.M. do it differently.” Indeed they do. R.M.Williams has collaborated with the Australian Paralympic team for nine consecutive Games.

Tudhope is used to wearing performance gear and technical outerwear on the slopes. For that reason, he says switching to R.M.Williams for his shoot with Esquire was a nice change of gears. “I loved it,” he says. “It was a whole different experience for me. Going in, I didn’t really know what to expect. I was probably more nervous for this than when I’m competing. But it was so much fun.”

After more than a decade of snowboarding at the highest level, Tudhope is preparing to step away from competing temporarily as he weighs up surgery and prioritises a mental reset. “I’m probably going to take a year off from competing,” he says. “I’ve been doing this for more than 12 years – since I was a teenager. I think some time off will be healthy for me, mentally.”

That doesn’t mean the fire has disappeared. Tudhope assures us that he will be back, in part because he wants to complete his set of bronze and silver medals with the colour that’s still missing. “I guess that’s the narrative that everyone wants to hear,” he says. “The short answer is: yes, I want to win a gold medal.”

But he also understands that if he wants to keep doing this, he needs to take a step back occasionally. “The best thing for me right now is to not be burnt out,” he says. “I think that will give me the best chance of winning gold in 2030.”

Tudhope’s medals already place him among Australia’s best Paralympians ever, but he has unfinished business with gold.