Toyota Opens Our Eyes to Life as a Visually-Impaired Paralympic Skier

As the Winter Paralympics kicks off next week, many people will be questioning just how the athletes manage to compete in spite of their disabilities.

To highlight the sheer skill of these sports stars, Saatchi & Saatchi LA and Dentsu have crafted a truly eye-opening - or more accurately, mystifyingly miraculous - campaign, mimicking the conditions of visually impaired Para alpine skiers.

Inspired by the story of Welsh skier, Menna Fitzpatrick, who is competing at this year's event, the See Like Menna campaign shows what she sees as she hurdles down the slopes at speeds of over 100 km per hour. With only three percent vision.

Toyota: See Like Menna Intro.

Luckily, her trusty guide Jennifer Kehoe is on hand to direct her - something that the team together with Archer's Mark director Michelle Coomber recreated in the accompanying 360 campaign film, below and @SeeLikeMenna instagram account.

With help from London's Royal National Institute for the Blind and a team of ophthalmic consultants, they created a three percent visual impairment filter to lay over the film and accurately convey Fitzpatrick's point of view. The result is a terrifyingly brave watch, revealing the trust between the pair, as Fitzpatrick relies almost completely on Kehoe's voice to lead her down the mountain.

Polish alpine skier Maciej Krezel and his Slovenian guide Marek Kupacka also feature in the 360 film. However, Krezel's conditions are much more affecting than Fitzpatrick's as he is completely blind in his left eye and has tunnel vision in his right. He wears an eye mask to block out all light as he paces it down the track. This story was added to the video in an attempt to improve categorisation of blind sport and the different degrees of visual impairment.

Toyota: See Like Menna 360 Experience

See Like Menna forms part of Toyota’s Start Your Impossible series, which began last year when the company was named the official International Olympic and Paralympic Committee partner, and aimed to improve its technology to enable human mobility.