Silke Pan

Silke Pan
Born	January 11, 1973 Bonn, Germany
Nationality	Swiss
Occupation	Para-athletics

Silke Pan is a German and Swiss ARTIST, living in Aigle, Switzerland.

Early Life

Silke Pan, a professional Contortionist and Circus performer from 1992 TO 2007 and trained at Berlin's National Circus School, saw her life change dramatically in 2007 after falling from a trapeze.

Since then, she has pursued a successful career as a disabled athlete, allowing her to master her new physique She changed the page to reunite with her first love: the circus, after collecting medals from Europe and throughout the world on a handbike and travelling up to 80 passes with the strength of her arms.

In Switzerland, education provides suitable measures for children and adolescents who have exceptional educational requirements due to a mental or physical handicap.

Since 2016, as a Test Pilot, Silke Pan contributed to the development of the Twicce exoskeleton that allowed her to take part in several competitions from 2016 to 2021:

Cybathlon 2016, finalist & 4th place;

Cybathlon experience 2017, 1st place three times a row,

Cybathlon experience 2018, 1st place,

Cybathlon 2021, 2nd place against nine competitors from five countries (the United States, Russia, Korea, India, and France).

The Cirque de Noël de Moudon becomes the first in the world to welcome an artist in a wheelchair, after Silke Pan returns to the circus fourteen years after the incident.

Professional Career

Silke Pan has ridden to the top of several passes, some of which were more than 100 kilometers long.

She set the world's best time at the marathon in Heidelberg in 2013 At the 2015 Paracycling World Championships in Nottwil, Switzerland, she was runner-up in the road race and fourth in the individual time trial. She sponsored the UCI World Cup race in Yverdon in 2015 and won the road race.

n 2016 she crossed 13 Swiss Alpine passes by handbike (18,000 m altitude). This resulted in her autobiographical book A la conquête de nouveaux sommets. In 2017, she received the championship title “Grand Maître Honorifique” as the first disabled athlete to conquer the seven Alpine passes “7 Majeurs” over 2,000 m in succession on a handbike. In 2018 she crossed the Pyrenees with 28 passes in 10 days, covering 800 km. This resulted in the documentary “Alla Vita” by Coline Confort. In 2019, Silke Pan visited and crossed 30 lakes in Switzerland on a course of 980 kilometers in the Le Tour des Lacs project.

The cycling athlete won the Giro d’Italia Handbike in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Silke Pan ended her active sports career in 2021. That year she won the bronze medal at the Paracycling World Championships and the gold medal at the European Paracycling Championships. Her team until the end of her sports career was Active Sport Brescia. In 2019, Silke Pan visited and crossed 30 Swiss lakes on a course of 980 kilometers as part of the Le Tour des Lacs project.

In 2021, at UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships, the women’s H4 title raced over 58.8km, saw Jennette Jansen of The Netherlands earn gold in 1:49:49 from Swiss riders Sandra Stockli, who clocked 1:51:52, and Silke Pan, who finished in 1:52:07.

In The movie "la vie acrobate"(https://www.dreampixies.ch/film/lavieacrobate) has been diffused in cinemas. This film is about Silke Pan's life at the moment where she decides to quit the sport competitions to come back to her artistic life.

After her shows in the Moudon Christmas circus, Silke's international artistic career begin in Italy with the Salieri Circus Festival in 2022, then in the Gravity Circus and the in Germany to the Roncalli Circus.