Australia's Paralympic Chef de Mission says the untimely death of para-snowboarder Matthew Robinson has galvanised the team to compete in his honour at the Sochi Games.
Robinson died last Friday, nine days after he sustained serious neck and spinal injuries in a crash on his race's final jump at the IPC World Cup finals in La Molina, Spain.
The 29-year-old, who was ranked world number one in his class, had a cardiac arrest during transit to his home city of Melbourne and could not be revived.
Chef de Mission Chris Nunn flew into Germany on Sunday to support the grieving snowboarding squad as they finish training before heading to the Russian city on March 3.
The tragedy has weighed heavily on competitors Trent Milton, Joany Badenhorst and 14-year-old Ben Tudhope, but they say Robinson has inspired them as they get ready for their first Paralympics.
"He's always in the back of my mind," said 19-year-old Badenhorst.
"Even when the initial accident happened and we weren't sure what condition he would wake up in, we knew things were serious and we had to stick together.
"We always had the notion of riding for him because he would have always ridden for us."
Snowboard coach Peter Higgins said the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) were making stickers with the slogan "I ride for Matty", in the hope Games organisers will allow them to wear them on their helmets.
"I'm sure all the teams are going to be really keen to get their hands on them and show their support," he said.
"We're hoping they'll allow it. We'll put them wherever we can, put it that way."
Nunn said Robinson's accident had not sparked any safety concerns among the team.
"They realise this was just a really unfortunate accident," Nunn said.
"And he was our best snowboarder in the program, so it just highlighted to them that it can happen to anybody.
"He just caught an edge, and that's enough to throw an athlete off.
"More than that it was the way he fell, and the nature of Matt's disability meant he couldn't protect himself in a fall like most people with good arm function could."
Para-snowboard will make its debut on the Paralympic program when the Sochi Games open on March 7, although Robinson's classification will not be contested.
Australian's Paralympic alpine skiers will wear sky blue armbands as a mark of respect when they compete in the IPC skiing World Cup finals in Tarvisio, Italy.
