The Wheelchair Challenge (with Francesca Porcellato)

Francesca Porcellato, Italy's multi-award-winning Paralympic athlete, has been one of our brand ambassadors for several years.

Francesca is a parathlete who is specialized in three different categories: athletics, cycling and skiing; and the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics was her eleventh participation.
In Tokyo 2020, Francesca achieved a well-deserved second place in the road cycling time trial (it was her fourteenth Olympic medal!).

Francesca is constantly challenging her limits, so we asked her to challenge the performances of our Aria ULTRA wheelchair.

Francesca tested her Aria ULTRA wheelchair against another rigid wheelchair in three different tests: speed, agility and stamina.

The first test, the speed test, was a 100 meters sprint. The two wheelchairs recorded different times: with the Aria ULTRA Francesca ended the race in 30 seconds, with the other rigid wheelchair in 33 seconds. 

The second test was the Agility test and involved an out-and-back slalom of four obstacles. Aria ULTRA recorded a time of 43 seconds, compared to one minute for the other rigid wheelchair. In this second test, the calories consumption was different: 3kcal for the Aria ULTRA test and 5 kcal for the other rigid wheelchair.

The last test was the Stamina test. Francesca ran an entire lap of the athletics track, a 400-meters circuit, in which Francesca and her Aria ULTRA showed all their ease of movement: 2 minutes and 52 seconds with 14 kcal recorded for Aria ULTRA and 3 minutes 11 seconds and 15 kcal for the other rigid wheelchair.

Simple tests that demonstrated the lightness, smoothness and agility of the Aria wheelchairs. 

We would like to thank Francesca for giving us the opportunity to create this Challenge.

What will be our next Wheelchair Challenge?
Stay tuned!