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Safety training course biathlon world champions and BVS Bayern athletes

At the Biathlon World Championships in Oberhof in February 2023, the German team won a gold medal and two silver medals and achieved six further top-six rankings. As Mobility Partner of the German National Biathlon Team, the BMW Group offered three safety training courses for people with physical disabilities as a reward for each medal won and one training course for each finish in the top six. A group of athletes from the Bavarian disabled and rehabilitation sports association (BVS Bayern) was invited to the BMW M Driving Experience in Maisach to take part in a safety training course with biathlon world champions Maren Hammerschmidt and Vanessa Hinz, an event that was as much about knowledge as it was about driving pleasure.The BMW M Driving Experience offers a special safety training course designed by Tina Schmidt-Kiendl, who is an instructor and head of project management at BMW M GmbH. The training course uses specially modified vehicles with hand-controlled equipment (electronic accelerator ring on the steering wheel or thumb accelerator with separate brake) that can be controlled by paraplegic persons and also persons with use of their feet. There is also a vehicle that can be operated by people who are paralysed on one side, for example, after a stroke. In addition to a theory section, the training content includes driving using hand controls, braking and evasion exercises, as well as the correct way to respond when oversteering or understeering the vehicle.