Childhood friends who won a major skijoring event, despite only having a tractor and no snow to practice on are returning to defend their title this week - and have upped their training game by strapping skateboards to the end of skis.
Skijoring is North America's fastest growing winter sport and consists of a horse pulling a skier over obstacles through the snow at breakneck speeds of up to 65km per hour.
Total underdogs, Susan Oakes and her best friend Barry O'Brien Lynch, shocked the skijoring world when they became the first Irish team ever to win the prestigious feature 2.5 furlong sprint race in the Skijordue Festival in Calgary, Canada in 2020.
Barry was even dubbed the 'Tractor guy' by competitors who marvelled at how the duo had trained without any snow. The win was even more impressive considering that accomplished horsewoman Susan was told by doctors in 2005 that she'd only have two years left of being able to ride a horse due to an autoimmune disease and that she made a remarkable recovery after a fall from a horse in 2016 left her with an acquired brain injury.