What a gap year it’s been so far for 19-year-old Otis Loga.

After graduating high school in Montpelier, Vt., in September, the aspiring Paralympian decided to spend a winter skiing and training out West before starting college. He landed at Snow Mountain Ranch, the YMCA of the Rockies, in Granby, Colo.

It was a dream for the relatively new sit skier, who was first invited to a US Paralympic camp in Canmore, Alberta, a year earlier. A three-sport athlete in high school, Loga has cerebral palsy (CP), a movement disorder that makes it difficult for his brain to send messages to the rest of his body. He was born with it, yet he persisted in sports, learning to ride a bike in fourth grade and competing in cross-country skiing, cross-country running, and track in high school.

As a freshman, Logan started skiing as most people do—on two legs—but initially needed skis without wax to give him more control. He worked up to skiing on wax and standing for an entire practice, but the coordination involved with cross-country skiing remained a challenge.

“Standing on one foot, moving on snow is an issue,” Loga explained. I was just falling and couldn’t keep up with anybody, and I came in last or second to last place every single race.”

At the first race of his sophomore season at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, he encountered a US Paralympics table. He picked up an information card, and his coach encouraged him to follow up with them.

“I checked it out, put my name on their email list,” Loga explained. “Next thing I know, BethAnn Chamberlain sent me a box with a sit ski in it.”

His contact with Chamberlain, the US Paralympics Nordic Skiing development coach, proved fruitful beyond his initial sit-ski setup. As a high-school senior, he attended the US Paralympics Nordic training camp and returned to Canmore for a second time this past winter.

“That’s when I met a lot of other skiers and got to ski with people at a high level,” he said. “[It] was like, ‘You’re double poling, and I’m double poling. Cool.’ ”

Chamberlain also connected Loga with Mark Birdseye, the nordic and biathlon competition coach for the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) in Winter Park, Colo., who facilitated his move to Snow Mountain Ranch.

“[She said] this might be a good training/gap year opportunity for you,” Loga reflected. “And I looked into it, like, great, I can get paid to work at the Nordic Center and ski and get coaching, and I’m already out West closer to people [to train with].”

As the recipient of a $3,000 grant from the Challenged Athletes Foundation, he received a new, custom-built sit ski precisely fit for him that didn’t require “five pounds of duct tape” to strap his legs in, as his old sit ski did. Loga joked that the new sit ski “fit [his] curves.” This past winter, he used it for training at Snow Mountain Ranch and several Paralympic training camps and races.

One of five athletes who trained with Birdseye this winter, Loga embraced his Colorado experience, downhill skiing at Winter Park and working, skiing, and living at the ranch. He worked full-time in exchange for lodging and food, the costs of which were deducted from his paycheck.

According to Loga, he taught lessons, worked on the ski patrol, interacted with customers, cleaned bathrooms, and kept walkers off groomed trails. When he wasn’t working, he trained on an abundance of snow on sit-ski-friendly trails.

“When I’m skiing at Snow Mountain, I feel like, ‘Wait, so I live here, and I ski here, and I get paid? What a dream,’ ” he said.

“He needed a place to live and a place to eat and a place to ski, and we are that place,” said Mary Ann Degginger, program director at the Snow Mountain Ranch. “He’s been a great staff member for us and a delight to work with, and he’s also just a really inspiring, inspirational human being.”

Birdseye, who served as program director at Snow Mountain Ranch from 1985 to 2010, described Loga as incredibly hardworking and coachable.

“He’s got a wonderful sense of humor about where he’s at in life and where he’s going,” Birdseye said. “He’s got a very good aerobic engine and can ski for a long, long time.”

Loga competed in several distance races this year, including the Boulder Mountain Tour in Sun Valley, Idaho, and back-to-back Stampede races at Snow Mountain Ranch. For the latter, he earned the coveted belt buckle for completing two 25 k races on consecutive days, the first of which was on an untracked skate course—a challenge for any sit skier.

“I am a long-distance person,” Loga proclaimed. “If you say ski, run, or bike, fine. Sprint 400 meters? No, thank you.”

As he packed for his return to Vermont this month, Loga said he was grateful for his time spent in Colorado with Birdseye at Snow Mountain and with the US Paralympics Nordic team. While home this summer, he said he would begin classes at a community college while continuing to train in an effort to make the national team and become a Paralympian. Next winter, he hoped to be back out West—preferably in Colorado at Snow Mountain Ranch.

“Athletically, he’s still a young man,” Birdseye said. “He’s only 19, so he’s still got a lot of maturation to go as a young man and an athlete.”

Birdseye said they had been working on Loga’s hand speed and interval-based training to build speed in shorter-distance races. For the start of the off-season, he explained Loga would be getting back into cycling shape during his cross-country road bike back home.

This Friday, April 19, Loga planned to meet his father at the Denver airport, drive to the Kansas-Colorado border, and ride roughly 2,000 miles back home over the next month or so. After having his legs strapped into a sit ski for most of this winter, Loga realized that riding 100 miles daily would be tough. He said the most he has ever done in one day is about 80 miles.

“My dad’s gonna fly out and be my swag wagon,” Loga explained. “I booked a month, so if I don’t make it in time, then I just hop in the car and drive.”

They planned to camp on the side of the road, stay in hotels when necessary, “or knock on some nice stranger’s door and spend the night,” he said.

“I said, ‘Otis, you’re gonna have to pedal yourself into fitness like they do in the Tour de France,’ ” Birdseye said with a laugh. “… You’re a great nordic skier right now, but the Viking legs will come…

“He’s got a very adventuresome spirit,” he continued. “… And he has such a great heart for people. He’s very caring and really wants to do the best that he’s capable of doing.”

At an Extraordinary General Assembly in Berlin, Germany, on Wednesday (16 November 2022), International Paralympic Committee (IPC) member organisations voted to suspend the National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) of Russia and Belarus.

ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Team USA won its first-ever mixed relay gold to close out the cross-country competition at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Sunday at Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre in Zhangjiakou, China.

Team USA’s 4 x 2.5-kilometer mixed relay featured Oksana Masters, Sydney Peterson, Dan Cnossen and Jake Adicoff guided by Sam Wood. They stormed to a 25:59.3 gold-medal finish.

China took silver in 26:25.3, and Team Canada captured bronze in 27:00.6. Defending world and Paralympic champions Ukraine finished fourth.

“I could not be more proud and more excited,” Cnossen said. “Really, it’s an honor to be part of this team knowing the caliber of athletes that I got to ski with.”

Cnossen, 41, became the most seasoned medalist for Team USA in Beijing. The gold-medal win also earned Masters a place in the history books as the most decorated U.S. Winter Paralympian with 14 career Winter Paralympic medals.

The relays were the only team events on the Para cross-country skiing program. The mixed relay featured four fast 2.5-kilometer laps that can be skied by an alternating team of two, three or four skiers and at least one man and one woman.

Masters raced a strong first leg to hand off to now three-time Paralympic medalist  Peterson for leg two. Cnossen skied leg three to hold Team USA in fourth place. Adicoff and Wood turned up the heat for the final lap, rocketing into first place and never looking back.

“We started that so hot, “Adicoff said. “We were just really gas in the beginning, no holding back in the first part. By the time we were at the top of the course, we skied into the lead. From there, we just had to stay on our feet and bring it home. Getting that energy from our teammates for that first part of the race was critical.”

The American team competed with athletes across the sitting, standing and visually impaired classifications. The team felt confident coming into the race after strong podium performances across each classification over the last eight days of Paralympic competition.

“It’s not just one athlete carrying the load,” Cnossen said. “We have really, really strong athletes in all the categories. For me, I didn’t have some of the individual success here that I’ve had in the past, but it just goes to show when you get to be part of a team that lifts the performance.”

“It’s so much better being part of a team,” Peterson said. “There were five of us out there today, and I think all of us had great races. Thanks to everyone else supporting us back home and all the Team USA staff here supporting us.”

The gold-medal win fueled the 4 x 2.5-kilometer open relay, the final competition for Para Nordic in Beijing.

First-time Paralympians Max Nelson, guided by Simi Hamilton, and Drew Shea teamed up with veterans Kendall Gretsch and Ruslan Reiter for the final relay. The team placed ninth overall in 33:03.0.

“It was fun to watch everyone ski in the first race and to go out there and just give it all you got,” Reiter said.

Team Ukraine won gold in 28:05.3 thanks to a strong last leg by Anatolii Kovalevskyi guided by Oleksandr Mukshyn. France finished second for silver in 28:30.4, and Norway held onto bronze in 28:41.0.

Max Nelson, the youngest skier on the U.S. Para Nordic team in Beijing, fought for Team USA from the very start of the race in the leadoff leg.

“It was pretty crazy at the start trying to fight off a couple skiers for my spot,” Nelson said. “But I’m just honored to be here and race for Team USA. It was a great day.”

The athletes made the most of the time on their course together in a sport that is normally focused on individual racing. Gretsch, who won three medals in biathlon and competed in all three cross-country races at these Games, said it’s exciting to see the athletes race head-to-head across the classifications.

“It is so crazy because there’s such a yo-yo between the legs of it so you can really like never count yourself out until the very end,” Gretsch said. “Everyone just has to go and give it their all for 2.5-kilometers.”

First-time Paralympian Drew Shea said this was a great way to end his first Games experience.

“This is pretty special in such an individual sport, just being able to fight for the next person who’s out there,” Shea said. “It’s not about you out there. It’s about the team so you’re just trying to make up every second and grind it out.”

Team USA’s Para Nordic skiers closed out a successful Paralympic Winter Games with 14 medals (four gold, eight silver and two bronze.)

Want to follow Team USA athletes during the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022? Visit www.teamusa.org/beijing-2022-paralympic-games to view the competition schedule, medal table and results.

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Author Bio:

Katie Grunik is a digital content creator for TeamUSA.org. She is covering her second Olympic & Paralympic Games for teamusa.org and currently serves as the digital content coordinator for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Team USA Nordic skier Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) skied her way into the record books on Saturday at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.

Masters won the silver medal in the women’s sitting cross-country middle-distance at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center, her sixth medal of Beijing 2022 and 16th overall medal in her Paralympic career, which is the fourth-most Paralympic medals by a U.S. athlete.

A star in both the winter and summer Paralympic Games, Masters has now won eight Paralympic medals in cross-country, five in biathlon, two in Para-cycling and one in rowing. Her eight cross-country medals are the most ever by a U.S. Paralympian and her 13 overall Winter Paralympic medals ties alpine skiers Sarah Billmeier and Sarah Will as the most all-time by a U.S. Paralympian.

On Saturday in warm conditions and slushy snow, Masters skied the middle-distance 7.5-kilometer course in a time of 25:24.7 — 37.2 seconds away from gold. China’s Hongqiong Yang won in a factored time of 24:47 and her teammate Jing Ma won bronze in 26:22.

Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Ill.) placed sixth, with a time of 27:47.

“Today was a really tough day. The combination of the fresh snow and the warm temperatures made for a brutal race,” said Gretsch, who will head home from Beijing 2022 with three medals from her individual races. “I’m proud of my performance here. I came out every race and gave it everything I had. I wanted a little more and was hoping to do a little bit better, but I can’t be upset that I gave everything I had.”

Together, the duo of Masters and Gretsch have won nine medals across six days of biathlon and cross-country racing at Beijing 2022, and the U.S. Nordic team as a whole has won 13 medals. With individual racing now concluded, the Nordic racing action finishes on Sunday with the mixed relays on the final day of Beijing 2022.

In Saturday’s standing middle-distance, Jake Adicoff (Sun Valley, Idaho), with guide Sam Wood (Harpswell, Maine), placed sixth in the men’s vision impaired category. Team USA’s Ruslan Reiter (Manchester, Maine) scored a top-10 finish in the men’s standing middle-distance, placing 10th, while teammate Drew Shea (Vienna, Virginia) finished 19th.

Sydney Peterson (Lake Elmo, Minnesota) who has won two medals in Beijing 2022 in her debut Paralympic Games, led the U.S. women in the standing middle-distance with a sixth-place finish. Dani Aravich (Boise, Idaho) scored her second top-10 finish of these Games, placing ninth. Two-time Paralympian Grace Miller (Palmer, Alaska) placed 16th. In the men’s sitting middle-distance, six-time Paralympian Aaron Pike (Park Rapids, Minnesota) led the way for the U.S. with a 12th-place finish. Josh Sweeney (Glendale, Arizona) took 24th.

To follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from the 2022 Beijing Paralympics, tune in to NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App.

ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Considering that March is Women’s History Month, U.S. Paralympic Nordic skiers Oksana Masters and Kendall Gretsch are certainly making their fair share of contributions to the history books.

Masters and Gretsch picked up gold and silver medals, respectively, on Friday at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, with Masters winning the women’s individual sitting biathlon in 42:17.9 and Gretsch finishing second in 42:23.7.

It was the third time within a week the pair, who train together in Bozeman, Montana, podiumed at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre. Combined, they have eight medals at these Paralympics, more than half of Team USA’s total medal haul.

Masters is now a 15-time Paralympic medalist — tying her with John Morgan for the fifth most Paralympic medals by a U.S. athlete — and a six-time Paralympic champion. Already at these Games she had won a gold in the sprint biathlon, and silvers in the middle-distance biathlon, long-distance cross-country and sprint cross-country events.

Following her first biathlon gold, she posted on Instagram: “Some feelings can’t be put into words. I am beyond proud to stand on the podium representing the heart, fight, love, resiliency, and pure joy for two countries,” referring to the U.S. and Ukraine, the latter being her birth country.

“I not only finally got to hold my dream, but I also am sharing parts of it with my home country of Ukraine especially for the young kids with disabilities. I want to make every start line mean something, make it really count for more than a result. That’s why I will be donating proceeds of my prize money from the Paralympics here to No Child Forgotten managed by Global Giving and Bridge Kids Charity, supporting children living with physical disabilities in Ukraine – many of them with single moms.”

Gretsch, who is still the reigning world champion in the individual biathlon, is now a six-time Paralympic medalist. This marked her first career silver medal, and she now has the entire collection of colors from Beijing 2022, having already won gold in the middle-distance biathlon and bronze in the sprint biathlon.“Today was an awesome day,” Gretsch said. “For me and the U.S. team it’s always fun to go one-two. We’re both shooting and skiing well, and so it was a fun race today.”

In the men’s individual sitting biathlon, six-time Paralympic medalist and former U.S. Navy SEAL Dan Cnossen was the top American finisher, taking seventh in 42:46.9. Six-time Paralympian Aaron Pike was ninth in 43:19.0. It was the third top-10 finish for both Cnossen and Pike at these Paralympics.

The U.S. Para Nordic skiers will return to the National Biathlon Centre on Saturday for the cross-country middle distance races.

Want to follow Team USA athletes during the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022? Visit TeamUSA.org/Beijing-2022-Paralympic-Games to view the competition schedule, medal table and results.

Through five days of competition, the U.S. Para Nordic team has collected 10 medals in cross-country and biathlon at Beijing 2022, with three more days of racing to go at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center.

Masters has won four medals — in all four races — at Beijing 2022 and now has won 14 medals in her Paralympic career. Masters, the 2021 world champion and 2018 cross-country sprint gold medalist from PyeongChang, finished just 1.7 seconds away from gold on Wednesday.

The cross-country and biathlon star powered up the hills on the 1-kilometer course and sprinted down the finish chute to nearly catch China’s Hongqiong Yang who won gold with a time of 3:18.2. Masters finished in 3:19.9 and Panpan Li of China earned the bronze in 3:31.0.

Team USA’s Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Ill.) placed fifth, in 3:37.3.

Adicoff and Wood won their second silver medal of Beijing 2022 in the men’s visually impaired category, just 0.8 seconds away from gold. The duo hammered the sprint cross-country course in a time of 3:20.3, just behind Canada’s Brian McKeever, guided by Russell Kennedy. Sweden’s Zebastian Modin, guided by Emil Joensson Haag, took the bronze in a time of 3:37.8.

The silver is Adicoff’s third medal of his Paralympic career — and he’s gunning for two more cross-country medals in Beijing.

“I said it before, but I’ll say it again — ‘We’re going to gun for gold,’” said Adicoff who is a three-time Paralympian who won silver in the 10k cross-country at the 2018 Paralympic Games in PyeongChang.

“Two more to go. We’re hoping for four for four (on the podium) so we’re right on schedule,” Wood said.

Adicoff said the fun of cross-country sprints is the opportunity to cheer on his fellow U.S. Para Nordic teammates. The entire team raced on Wednesday, which began with qualification rounds, a round of semifinals and the final to determine the Paralympic medalists.

“Being with this team is so much fun. Especially on sprint day. Sprint days are the best. You get to watch everyone and it’s an absolute blast,” said Adicoff. “The team had a good day, so we’re psyched.”

Peterson, who is competing in her first Paralympic Games, won her second medal of Beijing 2022, adding to the silver she won in long-distance cross-country. She completed the sprint cross-country in 4:12.1, behind Canada’s Natalie Wilkie (4:05.1) and Norway’s Vilde Nilsen (4:08.1).

“It was a super challenging race. There were a lot of components to it going throughout the day, but I’m super excited about how it all stacked up,” Peterson said. “I had a ton of people that were out there helping and cheering and it wouldn’t have been possible without all their support.”

A total of 14 U.S. athletes competed in the day’s events. For the women’s sitting sprint, Lera Doederlein and Erin Martin finished 14th and 16th respectively while Grace Miller took 14th in the women’s standing. In the men’s sitting competition, Dan Cnossen finished just outside a qualifying spot with a 13th place finish while Josh Sweeney finished 19th. Max Nelson took 14th place in the men’s visually impaired qualification round while Drew Shae covered the course in the first round of the men’s standing for 21st.

American teammates Dani Aravich, Ruslan Reiter and Aaron Pike made their way to the semifinal round finishing the sprint competition in 8th, 12th and 12th respectively.

Nordic athletes will enjoy a rest day on Thursday. Racing is scheduled to resume on Friday, with the men’s and women’s individual biathlon. To follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from Beijing 2022 on NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. All events will be streamed live on NBC’s Peacock. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.

By Stephen Meyers

ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Team USA’s dynamic duo of Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Ill.) and Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) won gold and silver in the women’s sitting biathlon middle-distance on the fourth day of competition at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.

The U.S. Para Nordic team has now collected seven medals across biathlon and cross-country skiing at Beijing 2022, with four more days of racing to go at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center.

For Gretsch, Saturday’s gold medal is the fourth gold —and fifth medal overall — in her Paralympic career. She won gold in the 6k biathlon and 12k cross-country events at PyeongChang 2018 and won gold in Para triathlon at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo six months ago.

The dual sport star now has two medals at Beijing 2022, as she began the biathlon competition with a bronze in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint.  

After receiving a penalty in the first round of shooting in Tuesday’s race, Gretsch shot clean the remaining three rounds and skied strong, with quick shooting, in the second half of the 10-kilometer race to overtake Masters and win gold in a time of 33:12. 

“I’m really excited with today‘s race. I had a good day on skis and I’m happy with our performance. Hopefully we can build on that for the rest of the races too,” said Gretsch, who praised the U.S. Para Nordic team’s culture and support.

“We have such a strong program and great support from our team. The coaching and everything from waxing our skis so they are really fast, and helping us with nutrition, all the support that we get from the staff at Team USA is huge.”

For Masters, Tuesday’s silver is the third medal she’s won in Beijing and 13th overall in her Paralympics career. She again shot clean — like she did en route to winning gold in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint — and finished 9 seconds behind Gretsch, in 33:21. 

“I’m excited with a silver medal. This is my second biathlon medal in the Paralympic Games. This is my second consecutive biathlon medal that I’d shot clean for, which I don’t normally do,” said Masters who also won silver in long-distance cross-country.

“I’m so proud of myself. I was doubting myself coming in here and I think now what I can do is have confidence knowing I have put the work into it and I can do it. And try to make it a little faster so I’m not just giving away time in the race trying to get that shot.” 

Germany’s Anja Wicker won the bronze, in a time of 35:45. 

Team USA’s Lera Doederlein (San Diego, California), competing in her first Paralympic Games, placed ninth. 

Dan Cnossen (Topeka, Kansas) was the top U.S. finisher in the men’s sitting biathlon middle-distance, where he placed 12th with a time of 34:10. Aaron Pike (Park Rapids, Minnesota) finished 15th in a time of 36:49.

Tuesday’s racing action also included biathlon middle-distance events in the standing and visually impaired categories. 

The lone U.S. athlete competing in the women’s race, Dani Aravich (Boise, Idaho) skied to 11th place in her second Winter Paralympic race. She made her Paralympic debut in track and field at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. 

In the men’s standing biathlon race, Ruslan Reiter (Manchester, Maine) placed 12th and Drew Shea (Vienna, Virginia) took 13th. Reiter is competing in his second Winter Paralympics, while Shea is making his Paralympic debut. No U.S. athletes competed in the visually impaired category.

Racing returns to the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center on Wednesday, March 9 with the men’s and women’s sprint cross-country.

To follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Games, tune in to NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.

The U.S. Para Nordic team has now collected five medals through three days of cross-country skiing and biathlon competition at Beijing 2022, with five more days of racing to go at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center.

Adicoff’s strong performance in the 20-kilometer cross-coutry race on Monday gives him his second Paralympic medal, adding to the silver he won in the 10k cross-country at the Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.

Adicoff retired from the sport following those Games, but got the itch to compete again during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. With months of dedicated training under his belt, the Sun Valley, Idaho, resident accepted an invitation to join the U.S. Para Nordic team for a training camp in February of 2021.

Paired with his longtime friend Wood as his guide, the 26-year-old came to Beijing as one of the top podium contenders in the men’s visually impaired field after the two combined for three medals at the Lillehammer 2022 World Para Snow Sports Championships in January.

(Listen to Adicoff and Wood on the Nordic Nation podcast here.)

On Monday, Adicoff and Wood completed the 20k course in a time of 58:54 solidly in silver position ahead of Sweden’s Zebastian Modin and his guide Emil Joensson Haag who finished in 1:00:05. Canada’s Brian McKeever, with guide Russell Kennedy, won the gold in a time of 55:36.

“It feels good,” Adicoff said. “I’m happy to be on the medal stand today and we’ll do everything we can to get the gold medal next.”

“It’s great to represent Team USA. We just love skiing with this team. It’s so much fun to be surrounded by people who are so dedicated and athletes who are so strong. It’s sweet to be a part of that.”

Wood echoed that sentiment and pointed out the U.S. Para Nordic team’s strong culture and commitment to excellence.

“The teammates that we have here are some of the best, most committed athletes in the world. For us to be able to use that to get fired up and get faster, that’s the best thing you can have as an athlete. We have a great support system and teammates,” Wood said.

In the women’s long-distance cross-country race, 20-year-old Peterson completed the 15k course in a factored time of 49:00, fast enough to capture the silver medal in her Paralympic debut. Canada’s Natalie Wilkie (48:04) and Brittany Hudak (49:27) won gold and bronze, respectively.

Peterson, a standing skier who is a sophomore at St. Lawrence University, said her silver medal “hasn’t sunk in yet.” Her entire Paralympic experience has been a whirlwind, she said.

It wasn’t until mid-February that she received an official bipartite invitation to earn a spot at the Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing. New to adaptive sports, Peterson raced in only one world cup event this season before traveling to Lillehammer for the world championships. There, she won two silvers and a bronze. Despite the strong performance on the world stage, Monday’s race came as a surprise to the Lake Elmo, Minnesota, native.

“I didn’t really expect to ever be here. It’s all happened really fast. It feels kind of surreal to be here,” Peterson said. “I’m pretty excited [to win the silver medal]. I really didn’t have many expectations. There are so many strong skiers in this field, and I didn’t know where things would stack up today. I felt pretty good [on the course.] I tried to ski smooth throughout the race. It was definitely a very hard race and physically exhausting.”

Grace Miller (Palmer, Alaska) also competed in women’s long-distance cross-country placing ninth to round out the U.S. team’s performances. On Tuesday, biathlon competition resumes in Zhangjiakou, as biathletes will compete in the men’s and women’s middle-distance in the sitting, standing and visually impaired classifications.

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Follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from Beijing 2022 on NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. All events will be streamed live on NBC’s Peacock. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.

U.S. Para Nordic star Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) won silver in the women’s sitting long-distance cross-country race on Sunday, her second medal of the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.

Masters, a cross-country skier and biathlete, also won gold in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint on Saturday and now has 12 career Paralympic medals between the winter and summer Paralympic Games. Sunday’s silver medal comes six months after winning double gold in Para-cycling at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.

The 2022 world champion in long-distance cross-county, Masters raced the 15-kilometer course at the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Center in a time of 43:38.8 — just 32 seconds behind China’s Hongqiong Yang, who won the gold with a factored time of 43:06. China’s Panpan LI finished with the bronze in 45:17.

Master’s silver medal matches the silver she won in long-distance cross-country at the Paralympic Games Sochi 2014.

“I was trying so hard to get the gold,” said Masters, who admits she could have raced faster from the start. “I was trying to upgrade from silver in Sochi and the PyeongChang bronze, but I’m just so happy to be able to fight my way onto the podium.

“I can’t wait to see the U.S. flag being raised today at the medal ceremony [for biathlon sprint]. I was trying to not do my classic ‘go out hard and then die.’ Looking back maybe I was too reserved in the first few laps and then got to a spot where I didn’t have enough space to make up. This course is not really technical so there’s not a lot of places to make up time either. I wish there was more elements of skiing in it, but I think it challenged me in a really different way and I’m excited to see what the next few races have.”

Teammate Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Ill.) finished just off the podium, in fourth, with a time of 46:26. She finished second, behind Masters, in long-distance cross-country at the Lillehammer 2022 World Para Snow Sports Championships in January. She won the bronze medal in Saturday’s sitting biathlon sprint.

Dan Cnossen (Topeka, Kansas) led the U.S. men in the sitting category, placing sixth with a time of 49:22. Former sled hockey champion turned Nordic skier Josh Sweeney (Glendale, Arizona), placed 16th in his Nordic debut. For Cnossen, Sunday’s long-distance race offered a new personal challenge.

“I don’t care what the result was today,” Cnossen said. “For me, this was a personal test. In my opinion, this is the hardest race that we do in the cross-country discipline at 18 kilometers. In the last Games we had in 2018, it was a 15-kilometer race.”

“I’ve never done an 18-kilometer, and I just wanted that personal challenge. There’s a battle going on in your head [during the race]. And it’s against the part of me that wants to go a little easier or softer, to kind of not challenge myself as much. And so, it’s a personal test to see what I could do and I’m happy with that. I executed my race plan really well. I had gas in the tank on the last lap, which was the plan. So, success for me.”

A newcomer to Para Nordic skiing, Sweeney isn’t new to the Winter Paralympics. The retired Marine Corps sergeant earned a gold medal as a member of the U.S. sled hockey team at the Paralympic Winter Games Sochi 2014. After retiring from sled hockey, Sweeney competed for a few years in elite paratriathlon before transitioning to Para Nordic skiing in 2021 through the Challenged Athletes Foundation. He notes his experiences from the different sports aids him on the Nordic course.

“Having the different sport experience is [helpful]. Knowing, especially in the triathlon world, what good pacing can do for you and not getting too carried away with what everyone else is doing is big,” Sweeney said. “I’ve learned over all these sports that you have to trust yourself and your coaches, respect the process and just put in the work and you’ll be alright.”

China’s Peng Zheng and Zhongwu Mao, won gold and silver, respectively, and Canada’s Collin Cameron won bronze.

Racing continues Monday in Zhangjiakou with the men’s and women’s long-distance cross-country in the standing and vision impaired categories. Watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from the 2022 Beijing Paralympics on NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. All events will be streamed live on NBC’s Peacock. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.

By Stephen Meyers | March 05, 2022, 7:27 a.m. (ET)

Oksana Masters (Louisville, Kentucky) won the first gold medal for the U.S. at the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Saturday in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint while teammate Kendall Gretsch (Downers Grove, Illinois) earned bronze on a cold, breezy day that included racing in the men’s and women’s biathlon sprint in the sitting, standing and vision impaired categories. 

Masters, a biathlete and cross-country skier, won her fifth career Paralympic gold medal and 11th overall medal between the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. Saturday’s gold was her first in biathlon; she won two silvers at the Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 in the 6k and 12.5k biathlon. 

“I can’t believe it, this is so amazing,” Masters said. “To be able to start off the Paralympic Games in Beijing and bring home a gold medal for Team USA is absolutely incredible. And it’s incredible because I get to do it with my teammate on the podium by my side again.”

“I think this just shows that there’s amazing stuff that’s going to happen for Team USA in the Para Nordic program.” 

Masters now owns Paralympic gold medals in biathlon, cross-country skiing and Para-cycling. She won two cycling golds at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 six months ago. 

Masters finished the 6k sitting biathlon sprint race in a time of 20:51.2. China’s Yilin Shan finished 15 seconds back with a time of 21:06 to earn the silver.  

Gretsch — who also won gold at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo six months ago, in paratriathlon — earned the bronze, with a time of 22:47. The medal is the fourth of her Paralympic career. At PyeongChang 2018, Gretsch won gold in the 6k biathlon and 12k cross-country events. 

“That was a tough race. The sprint is so short and you’re kind of going all-out the whole time. I’m happy to have the first race done and hopefully just build off today for the rest of the races,” said Gretsch, who also races the cross-country events. “It’s crazy [being back at the Paralympics six months after competing in Tokyo] and it’s feeling very different than Tokyo conditions today. I’m trying to channel how warm I was there. It’s always exciting to be at the Paralympics.”

Eighteen-year-old Lera Doederlein (San Diego, California) made her Paralympic debut on Saturday, also competing in the women’s sitting biathlon sprint, finishing ninth. It was Masters who encouraged Doederlein, who had been competing in sled hockey, to give Para Nordic skiing a try in 2019.

“It’s a pretty incredible experience for me to race [with Masters and Gretsch] especially since I’m only 18 years old and it’s my first Paralympics. It was incredible to experience this with them,” Doederlein said. 

Dan Cnossen (Topeka, Kansas), former Navy SEAL who won six medals in PyeongChang, led Team USA’s men on Saturday in the sitting biathlon sprint, placing fourth. 

“I dug deep as far as I could, and this is perhaps the best biathlon race I’ve ever had. I know it may not have been my best result, but for me, it’s more about effort and I really think I put a complete race together today,” Cnossen said.

“Biathlon is a really challenging sport in the sense that you can always ski a little bit faster into the range or you can always try to take your first shot a little bit quicker, or the shots two, three, four, five a little bit quicker. I’ve got to be happy with how I raced today. I’m also happy to be out there with my teammate Aaron [Pike] and our women who had an awesome day. I would also say I’m really happy to see the Ukraine athletes out here today getting after it. With everything they’re going through, it’s inspiring to me to see them compete. I was thinking about them today when I was out there.”

Pike (Park Rapids, Minnesota) finished eighth. A constant in the Paralympics over the past decade, Pike is competing in his sixth Paralympic Games. He raced in Tokyo for U.S. Paralympics Track & Field, competing in the marathon. 

In addition, Team USA had three athletes competing in the standing biathlon sprint. 

Dani Aravich (Boise, Idaho), who also competed in track and field in Tokyo, placed 13th in her first race as a winter Paralympian. 

In the men’s standing biathlon race, Ruslan Reiter (Manchester, Maine) placed 12th and Drew Shea (Vienna, Virginia) took 14th. Reiter is competing in his second Winter Paralympics, while Shea is making his Paralympic debut. 

No U.S. athletes competed in the visually impaired category. 

U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing athletes return to competition on Sunday, as cross-country action takes the stage with the men’s and women’s sitting long-distance races. 

Follow and watch U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing competition from Beijing 2022 on NBC, which features more than 230 hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, the Olympic Channel, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports App. All events will be streamed live on NBC’s Peacock. Follow U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily updates from Beijing.

Results

There are a select few athletes who compete in both the summer and winter Olympics, and fewer still is the number of athletes who have won gold medals at the two. Para-athlete, Kendall Gretsch, holds this distinction having won two gold medals at Pyeongchang in 2018 and gold in the para-triathlon at Tokyo in 2021. With two Olympics in the span of six months, Gretsch was set for a big year. 

In a TeamUSA interview Gretsch said, “When I got the news that Tokyo [2020] would be postponed, and Tokyo and the Beijing 2022 Winter Games would be six months apart, that was terrifying. In my mind, I was going to have a much different lead-up to Beijing, but now [speaking in 2021] looking back, it is comforting. Transitioning between two seasons has been something I have done for the past five years, and I know how to manage that transition well.” 

Gretsch was born with spina bifida, which resulted in her leg muscles not fully developing. She started competing in para triathlon in 2012 and had her international debut in para-nordic skiing in 2017 after she began training with the Central Cross Country Ski Association in Madison, WI as a form of cross-training for para triathlon. 

Triathlon was first added to the Paralympics at Rio in 2016, though Gretsch’s classification of PTWC2 was not initially included. Thus, the Tokyo games were the first opportunity for her to compete in the triathlon at the highest level. In a nail-biting finish, Gretsch narrowly took the victory, earning her third Olympic gold. 

With the start of the Beijing paralympics a little over a month away, FasterSkier caught up with Gretsch in Östersund, Sweden as she recovered from the recent Para World Championships in Lillehammer and prepared for the next round of World Cup races, which were scheduled for January 27th to February 1sts. 

By any measure, Gretsch dominated the competitions in Lillehammer. She earned three gold medals, coming in the middle distance classic sitting, biathlon long distance sitting, and biathlon middle distance sitting events. She also earned silver in the long distance freestyle sitting race, finishing behind her teammate Okansa Masters. Despite these strong performances, Gretsch was hesitant to read too much into what they might mean for the upcoming Paralympics. 

“It was good,” she said, “I think it’s kind of funny to have a World Championships in the same year as the games, just because you know that everyone’s focus isn’t necessarily the World Championships and that everyone’s really preparing for Beijing.”

Given that the World Championships and Paralympics are only separated by two months, Gretsch explained that athletes would be approaching the World Championships racing differently. “Maybe they’re coming in really tired, so I think it’s harder to gauge where you are from that, because it’s not the main event of the year for everyone.” 

Furthermore, the Chinese team was not present at the World Championships, which is another area of uncertainty for Gretsch. “We know that they are probably going to have a pretty strong team in Beijing,” she said, “so that’s kind of the big unknown – not having the chance to race them ahead of time.”

That being said, Gretsch was pleased to have this set of races as experiences before Beijing because, “it’s a pretty similar format, in terms of the number of races and the timing of them. So just being able to practice all of that is good. It’s definitely a little bit of a confidence boost, but you don’t know how everyone was showing up.”

Both gold medals in the biathlon events were essentially earned thanks to Gretsch’s shooting. For the past several years, she has been living at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, and with her focus on the para-triathlon event in Tokyo, time to practice shooting this past summer was scarce. 

“With COVID restrictions and the area where I train, I didn’t have access to as much [shooting] as I would like to,” explained Gretsch, “but I was able this fall to get in some shooting post-Tokyo, and then we had some early camps this year where I got to spend a lot of time in Canmore was was able to shoot there.”

Looking towards the Paralympics at the beginning of March, the expectations for Gretsch to win medals is high after her performances in 2018 and 2021. When asked how she manages both her own expectations and the expectations of others Gretsch responded, “It’s hard because I would say, I’m the one that puts the highest expectations on myself. I think [I’m managing expectations by] just understanding that we have a lot of racing opportunities in Beijing, and taking it race by race, hopefully using each race to learn more about the course and where you can make up the most time.” 

Having competed at one COVID Paralympics already would perhaps give Gretsch a mental advantage by knowing what to expect in terms of rules and restrictions. However, as she said, “it seems like there’s more unknowns about how the restrictions are going to be compared to Tokyo.” But, Grestch did admit, “I think there’s probably some advantage of having the expectations around daily testing and mask wearing and all of that. Just having had that experience I think will be helpful. And really, just the past year or so of racing, it’s definitely been pretty complicated so, just more experience of how to deal with that situation.” 

Recently the para program in the US has been growing, both in terms of numbers and in terms of the number of categories they have athletes competing in (for example, sit ski, vs. visually impaired, vs. standing with a limb deficiency). When asked what it has been like to be part of this growth and to have a bigger team at events like World Championships or the Paralympics, Gretsch was excited to see the team grow. 

“We just have more depth in all the different categories,” she explained, “and I think one of the places where that becomes really exciting is for relays. We have the potential to put together some really strong relays, probably for the first time ever.” Relay teams are structured based on a point system that factors in an athlete’s classification and gender. 

“I think that’s something that has our whole team really excited,” continued Gretsch, “the idea that we can have a competitive relay, and that’s something that people can really train towards, and hopefully contribute to be a part of that relay.” 

The Paralympics begin in Beijing on March 4th. Gretsch will be taking part in both cross-country and biathlon events throughout the competition schedule. 

The 21-year-old Norwegian crushed her competitors by nearly 1.5 minutes in the 10-kilometer classic race at the World Para Snow Sports Championships in Lillehammer on Thursday, January 13. Vilde Nilsen is back on the course on Tuesday, January 18, for the 15-kilometer skate event, and again in the sprint race on Saturday, January 22. The World Para Snow Sports Championships conclude with cross-country relays on Sunday, January 23.

At the IBU Biathlon World Cup in Rupholding, Germany, seasoned veteran Benedikt Doll (GER) opened the show on home turf with second place in the 10km sprint on Thursday. Then, on Saturday, Doll and fellow Madshus racer Roman Rees are instrumental in putting Germany on the podium in the relay.

Additionally, Anna Magnusson anchors Sweden to second place in the women’s relay in Rupholding on Friday, while Anaïs Bescond (FRA) pulls off a solid pursuit that lands her just outside the podium on Sunday.

In the long-distance series Ski Classics, Astrid Øyre Slind (NOR) opens 2022 with two podium finishes in two days: First, she hauled in to third place and several hill-climb points in the 62-kilometer Pustertaler Ski Marathon in Italy on January 8. Then, she capped off her weekend with second place in the brutal 32-km uphill race Prato Piazza Mountain Challenge on January 9.

The FIS cross-country World Cup in Les Rousses, France, on January 14 to 16 was cancelled due to the pandemic situation and the increase of Covid infections in Europe. The same is the case for the cross-country World Cup in Planica, Slovenia, on January 21 to 23.

Accordingly, Tour de Ski, was the last cross-country World Cup so far this season. The brutal stage race started in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, on December 28, and concluded with the traditional hill climb on Alpe Cermis in Val di Fiemme, Italy, on January 4.

Several Madshus racers posted strong results both on individual stages and in the overall classification. These are a few of the highlights from the 2022 Tour de Ski:

Among the women, Mathilde Myhrvold (NOR) was second in the sprint race on the opening day in Lenzerheide. This was her first-ever World Cup podium, and the performance also unlocked some milestone opportunities for the 23-year-old later this season. Sophia Laukli (USA) was fifth in the infamous final hill climb on Alpe Cermis, just ahead of veteran World Cup racer Krista Pärmäkoski (FIN). Pärmäkoski was fourth overall in the grueling stage race.

On the men’s side, Harald Østberg Amundsen (NOR) was ninth overall in his first-ever Tour de Ski, after posting several top-10 finishes throughout the race week. Lucas Bögl (GER) was fourth on the final climb, missing the podium by just 10 seconds.

Rewinding to where our previous coverage left off, Saturday’s schedule featured the final individual races of the Championships, a classic spring for standing athletes, and a cross country sprint for sprint skiers. As in able-bodied fields, a sprint involves a qualification round, followed by a semifinal and grand finale to decide the medalists. The number of athletes who make the semifinal varies based on category.

Highlighting the day, Oksana Masters took gold in the women’s sitting race, her sixth medal of the Championships (two of each color) and career 11th World Championship medal. This title was not certain until the final meters of the race, where Masters put in a final surge to overtake an athlete from Belarus just before the line. 

“It feels incredible,” Masters said in the Team USA press release. “It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was barely making finals in sprint, or I couldn’t finish a sprint without falling or breaking a pole. To be able to have a third consecutive world championship title in this event is just incredible.”  

Another medal favorite based on her performances through the week, Kendall Gretsch also raced in the sitting finale, however, a late crash put her out of reach of the podium and she ended the day in fifth.

On the men’s side, Aaron Pike led the American men in the sitting sprint, placing well inside the top-12 to qualify for the semifinals. In his semi, Pike finished fifth and did not advance to the finale. Meanwhile, Dan Cnossen was 16th in qualification and did not advance to the rounds. 

In the women’s standing races, newcomer to the team Sydney Peterson earned her second silver medal of the week, in addition to a third place medal. Perhaps still gaining experience, Peterson felt her first two rounds of racing were not smooth, though it came together in the final round. 

“I had some mishaps the first two races this morning so I’m glad that things worked out for the finals,” said Peterson to Team USA. “I’m pretty excited that was a really fun race. It will be fun to continue racing.” 

A second standing athlete, Dani Aravich, was just shy of the top-eight in qualification, meaning she was unable to advance to the semifinal for her class. 

Also on a medal streak, visually impaired athlete Jake Adicoff and his guide Sam Wood earned a silver medal in the classic sprint, allowing them to make a clean sweep of gold, silver, and bronze in the three events they contested this week. 

“I’m feeling pretty good,” said Adicoff. “This is an improvement from the classic sprint in Canmore. We’re pretty happy with the result and it’s super fun racing out there. [We’re taking away] a little bit of confidence and then to be off that gold medal for two races now that’s what we’re looking for – gold in Beijing.” 

On Sunday, the American squad fielded two relay teams in the mixed-gender, mixed-class 10-kilometer event. Given the variations in time based on sitting, standing, and subcategories within those groups, this makes for an interesting equation. Simultaneously, what better a way to highlight the diversity, talent, and teamwork seen across nations?

According to the daily Team USA press release, “relays were structured so that each athlete was assigned points based on their classification and gender, and the sum of each team’s total points could not exceed 335 for the mixed relay and 375 for the open relay. From there, it was head-to-head racing, and factored times did not come into play.”

Masters led an all-women’s team for the U.S., passing off to Peterson for the second leg, with Grestch racing third, and Aravich as anchor. Each of the women put together strong performances to keep their team within the top four, finishing in a cumulative time of 31:41.5.

“We didn’t know until yesterday how we were going to do the relays, so when our coaches told us it was all women, we were really excited,” Aravich explained in the press release. “When we looked at the points and how it was stacked up, we probably shot ourselves in the foot a bit because we didn’t come close to maximizing the points we could have had in the race. We set our expectations to have fun and end this trip on a high note, which we did.”

On the men’s side, Adicoff and Wood raced both the second and final leg of the relay, with Pike leading the team for the first leg and Cnossen racing third. Following a strong opener from Pike, Adicoff and Wood brought the men into second place, though they slipped back in the results over the next two. They finished the race in fifth overall, however, they were issued a 30-second time penalty for one of their exchanges, which bumped them down to sixth.

The next races on the Para World Cup calendar begin next weekend, running January 27th – February 1st in Östersund, Sweden. The 2022 Paralympic team will be named following these events on February 1st, leaving the team just over a month to prepare for the Games in Beijing, which kick off on March 4th. 

More information, including press releases, livestreams of past events, and links to results can be found on the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Facebook page. You can also follow the team on Instagram, or at TeamUSA.org/USParaNordicSkiing.

It’s late January and we’re deep into the race season. As the Olympics and Paralympics draw nearer, we’ve simultaneously just wrapped up the Tour de Ski, the U.S. Cross Country Championships, and another wave of SuperTour races. Never a dull moment in the racing world, the Para World Championships are currently well underway, running January 13-23rd in Lillehammer, Norway. 

Normally occurring on odd years, the World Championships were postponed from last February due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, the event was called the Lillehammer 2021 World Para Snow Sports Championships. It was a hallmark event, as it is the first time that all snow sports have competed together in one location over the same dates.

Led by well-decorated veterans like Oksana Masters, Kendall Gretsch, and Dan Cnossen, the U.S. Para Nordic Team has put together a string of outstanding results at World thus far. Events have ranged from biathlon springs to cross country distance races, with athletes competing – and cleaning up – across all disciplines and distances.

Kicking off the series of events, Sun Valley’s Jake Adicoff took home his career first World Championship medal by winning the men’s visually impaired 10-kilometer middle distance race.

“It feels great,” Adicoff said of his performance, according to the Team USA Press Release. “Lillehammer has been skiing really well so far, I’ve been having a lot of fun here. It feels great to go and get that first podium, and hopefully we can go out and get some more here.”

Adicoff retired in 2018 after earning a silver medal in the 10k and taking 4th in the sprint, however, he is making his return with a bang in this 2021/22 season. 

Building momentum throughout the first day, 19-year-old Sydney Peterson earned a silver medal in the women’s standing middle distance race, with Gretsch earning the second gold medal for team USA in the women’s sitting 7.5k middle distance event. That’s three medals, two gold and one silver, on the first day of racing, along with an additional two athletes, Cnossen and Dani Aravich, earning top-10 finishes. 

Joining the team in Lillehammer late after testing positive for COVID-19 on New Year’s Eve, Masters made a smooth return to competition, taking second place in her first race at Worlds, the sitting biathlon sprint on January 15th. The next day, the American women took first and third in the sitting biathlon middle distance race, with Gretsch earning her second gold medal of the week and Masters adding an 18th World Championship medal to her ever-expanding collection.

On point, a perfect shooting performance contributed to Gretsch’s gold, while Masters skied her way out of a significant deficit. Experiencing challenges on the range, Master’s racked up seven penalties, but made up her shooting with her skiing. In the men’s sitting race, Master’s partner, Aaron Pike, skied his way into the Top-10, a rank he has achieved in each of his World Cup races this season, leaving him primed for a medal. 

Two days later on the 18th, Masters and Gretch again took the spotlight, going 1-2 in the women’s sitting 15k long distance cross-country race. Now reaching 19 total, this marked Masters’ 10th career World Championship gold medal.

“It’s absolutely incredible,” Masters said in the Team USA press release that day. “It feels like yesterday where I was that new athlete, never thinking that I would be a world championship athlete. So, to have 10 now … is incredible and it’s a testament to our team’s hard work. It’s not just me, it’s the whole team.” 

Already an historic day for the U.S., Peterson and Adicoff continued the medal streak in the long-distance cross country races, with each athlete earning a bronze medal in the standing and visually impaired divisions, respectively. Four Americans competed that day, and four medals were won. How’s that for success? 

As the final days of World Championship racing kicked off, Pike’s consistency paid off with a silver medal in the men’s sitting individual biathlon event. Missing just one target, matching the best result of the event, Pike finished 24 seconds back on the winner, Pavlo Bal of the Ukraine. This result is both a World Championship and overall World Cup career best for Pike, who is an accomplished wheelchair racer during the summer season. 

“It was a tough day to be shooting out there, everybody’s missing so I was happy to come away with just missing one shot,” said Pike in today’s recap. “This is probably the windiest race we’ve had in three years. Every chance you get to put a bib on and race in a biathlon race is experience.”

Racing in the women’s sitting individual biathlon, Gretsch and Masters continued to dominate the field, taking first and third, respectively, to keep their medal streak alive and well.

Again performing well on the range, Gretsch missed just one target in four rounds of shooting and skied the second fastest time on course for a finish time of 52:25.0. While Masters skied the fastest time of day, she again faced challenges in her shooting, incurring five penalties, leaving her 3:00.7 behind Gretsch in the final results. In the women’s standing class, Aravich earned another top-10 finish in eighth. 

After a day of rest, the Para athletes have two final days of racing in Lillehammer on the 22nd and 23rd, which feature a sprint for the standing and visually impaired categories on Saturday and a Mixed Relay on Sunday. Based on the week’s results, it’s clear that they are primed for another medal run in the upcoming 2022 Beijing Paralympic Games, which begin March 4th. 

Livestreams of past and upcoming events, along with links to results can be found on the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Facebook page, or you can check out the remainder of snowsport events happening this week in Lillehammer by following along here.

Among these athletes was Aaron Pike, professional wheelchair racer and U.S. Para Nordic national team member, who raced the London Marathon on October 3rd, followed by Chicago on October 10th, and Boston the next morning. This was all on the coattails of the Tokyo Paralympics where took 6th place in the marathon, just 40 seconds outside of the medals. 

While the transition between a Summer Paralympics in August and a Winter Games six months later is already tight, Pike trusted the crossover in fitness between sports and seized the opportunity to put together a fall marathon series. FasterSkier connected with Pike on a call in early November at the beginning of his first on-snow camp of the season in Canmore, Alberta. 

Before jumping into the races, a bit about Pike’s background in sport. After sustaining a hunting injury when he was 13, Pike was paralyzed at the T11 vertebra of his mid-back. He explained that his family was living in Virginia at the time, which was fortuitous as a community member who was a former Navy Seal that began racing IronMan distance triathlons after his own injury heard about Pike’s circumstances and quickly took him under his wing. 

“He came and visited me in the hospital pretty shortly after [I was injured],” Pike recalled. “I think I was still in inpatient [treatment] — but he came to visit me and was just telling me that he’d be a resource. He showed me some pictures of adaptive sports and what he does, and gave my parents all the contact information.” 

The mentor was also coaching a youth wheelchair racing team and invited Pike to attend a practice once he was out of treatment. 

“Maybe like a month or two after, I went out to watch a practice.. He had a group of six or seven other kids out there, and he brought a program chair out for me to try out. And it all just went from there.”

Pike advanced quickly in wheelchair racing through high school, but it was during his time at the University of Illinois-Champaign when his career flourished. Pike found success racing on the track, focusing on events 1500 meters and upward. It was also at the University of Illinois where he was first introduced to nordic skiing and biathlon, although he did not try it for himself until later on.

“[Former US Para Nordic] biathlon coach, Rob Rosser, came to the University of Illinois with a SkiErg and some rifles and just to introduce people to biathlon and cross country skiing. He set up the SkiErg so we could try them out — I think they were set up side-by-side, so you could sort of race each other. But  the timing was tough, because it was right before the London Games, so everybody was kind of like, ‘Oh, this is cool,’ but then was right back to what they were focusing on. I didn’t think too much about it either.”

Shortly after racing the marathon at the London Paralympics in 2012, Pike received an email inviting him to attend a Para Nordic camp in Bozeman, where the national team now calls home base. 

“So the first place I ever skied was in Bozeman,” he laughed. “So I got to try [out sit skiing] and, ended up liking the sport a lot right off the bat, day one pretty much. So it didn’t take too long for me to realize that it wasn’t just something that I was only going to try here and there in the winter.”

Two years later, Pike made the Paralympic team for both the Sochi Games in 2014 and PyeongChang in 2018, earning his best results in Korea with a 6th place finish in the 15-kilometer biathlon event and 7th in the 12.5k biathlon. He hopes to improve upon these results in Beijing this winter. 

While he hoped for more in Tokyo, Pike has steadily climbed the Olympic ranks in the event. He was 16th in London in 2012, 10th in Rio in 2016, and 6th in Tokyo. As previously stated, he was just 40 seconds outside of the medals and finished alongside the 5th place athlete from Great Britain. 

“I was happy with how [the race in Tokyo] went considering a few factors: we had wet conditions, which always makes it super challenging. It’s kind of like skiing where if you choose the wrong [wax], you’re going to have a really rough race. So I set myself up really well by prepping for the rain, whereas a chunk of the field had problems just managing [the conditions].”

Let’s unpack the ski comment quickly. What those unfamiliar with wheelchair racing may not expect is that one of the primary challenges on race day is much like that of classic waxing: achieving optimal grip. Instead of skis on snow, it’s gloves on rings, and problem solving with sandpaper, rubber, and even klister. Yes, klister. Pike shared that Rode Chola is a commonly used product in wet conditions.

Despite preparing for wet conditions, Pike explained he did not feel his strongest during the event and quickly fell out of medal contention. Nonetheless, he stayed in it and advanced through the field as the race went on.

“The start was not the best for me, a couple people got away early. Right off the bat, I was in eighth or ninth place, but I was able to keep reeling people in. I pulled up to one of the Japanese racers, and then he and I pulled up to my teammate, Daniel [Romanchuk]. All three of us reeled in two more guys, so then we were in a pack of five, but weren’t able to catch the front leaders.”

The experience of competing in a pandemic-shrouded Games also gave him a taste of what to expect in Beijing. Compared to his past Olympic experiences, Pike missed the energy of team processing and meetings where collective energy was all that was infectious. He explained that travel was more cumbersome with the added precautions, however, once in the Olympic Village, the differences felt less significant. 

“Once you’re in the Village, that was normal. The Village life was cool. We still got to go to the cafeteria [with all the other international athletes], they just had plastic barriers up everywhere. I think the weirdest part was having an empty stadium. It was just super bizarre… it’s like this gorgeous massive stadium that can hold like 70,000 people and it’s just empty.”

He explained that tickets had been sold out for all of the final rounds of events, so it was disappointing that fans could not attend.

While Pike was happy with his effort in Tokyo on the day, he felt significantly stronger in each of the three World Majors that he raced. Rather than cumulative fatigue, Pike was in full stride throughout the series. 

“Oddly enough, the worst was the first one, the London Marathon. For whatever reason I was able to hang with people, but not really do much more than that.”

Pike took 5th place in London in 1:31:36 (​​+5:09), before hopping on a plane bound for Chicago.  

Despite unseasonably warm conditions and wind that supported the city’s nickname, Pike raced his fastest time on course to finish on the podium in third, his best overall result in Chicago. It was a race where everything came together so well, he had little to say about it, other than, “It was awesome.” 

Pike finished 21-seconds behind the winner in 1:29:28. Less than 24 hours later, he was back on a starting line in Hopkinton, ready to race to Boston.

“That was the one I was going to be the most worried about, because that’s a really tough race, and coming the day after [Chicago]. And that was one where I made the wrong decision about grip.”

Remember: like classic skiing, some days are straight-forward cold snow and hard wax days, whereas others you’re down to the wire looking for answers, tossing an extra option or two in your drink belt before heading out just to be safe. Variable conditions and changing weather for wheelchair racers are akin those dreaded humid near-freezing with falling snow days where you can’t tell if hairies will get the job done, or if you need some kind of miraculous combination of covered klister, and no matter what you go with, you’ll probably deal with some icing. Err on the side of caution with icing, and you may have no grip whatsoever. 

In a race wheelchair, rubber on rubber maximizes surface area between gloves and rings, allowing the most force as the athlete pushes powerfully on each stroke. But Pike explained that sandpaper is “night and day better” when the wheel rings are wet.

On the morning of the Boston Marathon, a mild storm was clearing. Pike explained it was raining during the warm up, but it let up before the start. Still, the precipitation left standing water on the roadway, making for conditions that were wetter than the weather. Because the weather didn’t match the actual race conditions, Pike explained his initial choice of gloves meant he could not take advantage of the early downhills, which is typically one of his strengths. Luckily, he stashed a backup pair of gloves, which he normally does not do.

“It seemed fine,” he said of his glove choice in the warm up. “I had my sandpaper gloves on me [just in case I needed to switch], and I strapped into my chair, which I’ve never done, but I just had a feeling something might not go right with a grip. Sure enough, when we started bombing down the hills right at the beginning — it wasn’t until going super fast on the hills that the wheels were lifting up water from people around me and spraying the rings and getting them wet. But there was no time to change [gloves] early on, so it was just kind of a struggle at the beginning.”

While trying to minimize his time losses, Pike found an opportunity to switch into the sandpaper gloves, which drastically improved his grip and allowed him to bring himself back into contention. 

“Once I switched them out, then I was just catching one person after the next, all the way up to the point where I got fourth. I think I could have easily got third in that race as well if I just started with the sandpaper.”  

Every year, Pike has to decide when to hang up the race wheelchair and transfer into his sit ski. The calculus is complicated by late-season opportunities like the marathon series, and is especially fickle surrounding Paralympic cycles. 

“It was a really hard decision…I think the fact that there were three marathons in such a short time — having missed so many marathons because of COVID and not having the opportunity to race for a while, then having three of them within eight days of each other. It was just hard to pass that up.”

While both are endurance sports, wheelchair racing is a pushing motion, while double poling in a sit ski, like standing, is a pulling motion that involves more engagement of larger back muscles. For whatever reason, Pike feels the transition from skiing to wheelchair racing happens more smoothly than the opposite direction. As he shifts back into ski mode, his primary focus is rebuilding the specific strength.

“I really have to moderate the intensity for the first month,” he explained. 

Eager to begin the transition process, Pike and his partner, Oksana Masters, headed to Canmore a week before their teammates. Masters is also a USA Para Nordic team member and is a three-time Olympic Gold Medalist in both cycling and cross country skiing.

“It’s just getting that feeling back,” he said. “Nothing truly replicates skiing. So just going out and skiing every day and getting x-amount of hours on snow every week is just huge.”

Pike reiterated the importance of a smart progression in the early season as his specific strength develops, not rushing into intervals that his body might not be ready for without that strength and trusting that his fitness from the marathon season will stick around for when the time does come to push hard. 

“And also — not worrying about the first World Cup…” he continued. “We almost don’t even look at the results sheet. We’re still going to be lifting heavily and will mostly just use it as an intensity block in the training season.”

He added that the coaches are also able to take plenty of video for technique work during the camp and opening races, ensuring athletes are skiing with good form from the start of the season.

The opening World Cup event will take place in Canmore beginning on December 4th. Pike explained that his season goals are not until March, when the Paralympic Games kicks off in Beijing. He’s focused on gaining race experience in the World Cups and working with his coaches to hone his skiing and shooting skills. Ultimately, his eye is on a Paralympic medal.

“[In terms of specific events,] on the cross country side, I really love the sprint. It’s our only race where we go head to head and it’s purely just a race to the finish line. More times than not, I’ve made the final for the sprint, so that’s definitely one of the focuses for me.” 

Pike also is focused on the individual biathlon events.

FasterSkier will continue to follow the Para Nordic athletes through their build up to Beijing. 

If you didn’t catch the ending of the triathlon during the Tokyo Paralympics, prepare for the chills. Spoiler alert: in an all out, last gas effort in the final meters, dual-season athlete Kendall Gretsch edged out Australia’s Lauren Parker by one second for a Gold Medal victory. 

This is Gretsch’s third Olympic gold, alongside the two she earned during the 2018 PyeongChang Paralympic Games, first in the 6-kilometer biathlon sitting sprint and again in the 12 k cross-country distance race. Her achievement in Tokyo makes her the fifth American — third female — to win a Gold Medal at both the summer and winter Paralympic Games. 

Taking a step back, triathlon was first added to the summer Paralympic schedule in 2016, however, only a subset of the nine competition classification categories were allowed to compete. Gretsch was born with spina bifida, which is the result of a neural tube defect during fetal development, impairing her spine and spinal cord. While she walks with crutches, she competes in the PTWC2 (paratriathlon wheelchair) division, meaning after the swim, she races the bike leg on her handcycle, before transitioning into a racing wheelchair for the run. The Tokyo games were the first opportunity for the two PTWC categories to compete. 

FasterSkier spoke with Gretsch in April of 2020 when the news first broke that the Tokyo Olympics were definitely postponed until 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As we discussed, this leaves just over six months for athletes like Gretsch who compete in both winter and summer sports to prepare for the upcoming Beijing Paralympics, which begin on March 4th, 2022. Following up to learn more about her experience in Tokyo, FasterSkier reconnected with Gretsch on a call to hear how she is mentally and physically recharging before ramping up her training for the winter season. 

First, let’s go beyond the highlight reel to learn more about the Gold Medal day. 

Because Gretsch is in the lesser impaired category, she starts at a deficit of four minutes and four seconds behind competitors in the PTWC1 division. The clock starts running at the same time for all athletes, and the first woman across the line is the winner, regardless of starting wave. Among the women in the PTWC1 division was Gretsch’s mark, Parker.  

The Australian has a lengthy resume in elite triathlon, including a second place finish in the 2015 Kona World Championships as an able-bodied athlete. After recovering from a serious accident in 2017 that left her with permanent spinal cord damage, Parker began competing in paratriathlon, quickly ascending the ranks and ending the 2019 season with a commanding victory at the ITU World Championships. 

While Gretsch is accustomed to the staggered start in her event, she explained that it does change the tactics compared to a mass start competition. 

“The goal is to consistently make up ground,” Gretsch explained in a call. “So I wouldn’t say it’s a very tactical race, and that you’re like, waiting to time your move, or finding the right spot on the course to make a move. You’re basically just going all out in trying to [catch the earlier starters] by the end of the race, hoping you can make up that four minutes.”

The PTWC race includes a 750 meter swim, a four-lap 20 km bike, and a four-lap 5 km run, which Gretsch completed in a total time of 1:06:25. She explained that the many laps during the bike and run allowed her coaches to regularly provide her with feedback of where she stood relative to the leaders. 

Gretsch began making up time right away. She was 35 seconds faster than Parker in the swim, and left the second transition from bike to run just a minute and twenty seconds back. While she acknowledged that the percentage of the race that happens on the bike makes it an opportunity to make a dent in the deficit, she also explained that her progress during that leg surprised her. 

“It did play out a little bit differently, in my mind, than I thought it was going to,” she shared. “Usually I can make up a little bit more time on the swim, and then I know that Lauren is a super strong biker. So going into this race beforehand, my goal was to make up some amount of time on the swim and really just not lose time to her on the bike. So yeah, I was really pleased that I was able to make up as much time out on the bike as I did in this race. Especially because she had an amazing swim.”

Sometimes good results come from races where we never feel our best and may feel surprised by the outcome. Likewise, there are the days we dream about where everything is clicking from start to finish and we know from the gun that it will be a good day. For Gretsch, there were elements of both. 

“I would say my swim was average. And then as soon as I got onto the bike, I knew that it was a really good day for me and that I was feeling really strong. So I kind of just  told myself throughout the race — I knew that [I was giving]  everything I had on that day, and could push really hard. And regardless of what happened, I knew it was gonna be a really close race. If I passed her, if I didn’t pass her; I just knew that it was going to be a really exciting race to watch. So that was kind of cool to have that recognition during the race that regardless of what happens, I wasn’t going to have any regrets about the race because I knew I was going as hard as I could, and that it was going to be an exciting race for people to watch.”

With three golds and a silver from ITU World Championships, five USA Paratriathlon national titles, and a slew of international podiums, Gretsch is no stranger to high level competition. However, the Paralympics is the Paralympics; held as the pinnacle of sport in the United States. 

Grestch spoke about her mindset approaching the Games in terms of managing expectations she feels, whether internal or external, and her approach to the mental strain of competing in Tokyo. 

“Going to the Paralympics is something that I’ve wanted to do ever since I got involved in triathlon, so finally having the opportunity  this year in Tokyo — this race was just so important to me. And I maybe underestimated the mental drain going into the race. It’s such a mental roller coaster where, you know, you feel great some weeks, and you feel bad on some days. And it’s hard, because it just feels like your whole — everything you’ve done for the past five years, even longer than that has just been leading to this one day. So I think for me, it was just such a huge relief that I did have a day where I felt so strong. And again, if it was first or second, I was going to be happy with the outcome either way, because I knew that I had done everything I could in the preparation leading up into the games, and that was everything I had on that day.”

Circling back to the postponement of the Games, Gretsch reflected on whether or not the decision to move the games to 2021 was a benefit or detriment. 

“I think the postponement really worked in my favor. I had gotten all new equipment for my bike and the run in October of 2019. So just having that extra year gave me time to work with that equipment and dial that in, and it also gave me the opportunity to take a step back and maybe rethink how I was training. Specifically, I think, the run and bike became two really big focuses for me. And so just having that extra year to be able to change things up, try something new and not have to worry about risking a race season because if something didn’t work, it wasn’t as big of a risk.” 

Considering the elongated buildup for Tokyo and the brief window to take a break before preparing for Beijing, Gretsch explained that her mind more so than her body needed to recharge. Our call took place following a short vacation.

“Obviously, you need the physical recharge, and that’s something that I’m familiar with from going between the seasons every single year. But the mental drain of the Games was a lot bigger, I think, than just a regular summer season. So the mental break that I took was so important for me. Now that I’m starting to get back into [ski training] now, I’m just excited about it and ready to go and not, you know, carrying any fatigue this week from that.”

At the moment, changing gears looks like a steady reintroduction of ski specific elements to her training, including shooting and double poling. Gretsch, who is based at the Olympic and Paralympic training center in Colorado Springs, also attended a 10-day USA Para Nordic training camp in the ski tunnel in Oberhof in late September.

“Since I don’t have access to snow yet [in Colorado], introducing some time on the Ski Erg again, getting range time when I can. So yeah — just trying to get back into the ski motions before leaving full time for the Winter, around the end of October or early November.”

Finally, Gretsch reflected on her experience in the COVID restriction shrouded Games in Tokyo compared to her previous Winter Olympic experiences. 

“It’s weird to think about because — if I thought about what the environment was, or if someone told me that this is what it was going to be like four years ago, I think I would have said, ‘Oh, wow! That’s so crazy to imagine.’ But we’ve been living through COVID for 18 months, almost two years now. And so it strangely feels kind of normal.”

FasterSkier will continue to follow the Para Nordic team’s whirlwind build up to the Beijing Games. 

It’s a system with a relatively steady influx of skiers at the pipeline’s intake.

One aspect of the product, the potential to advance in the pipeline, can, in many ways, sell itself. If you live in a mountain town or northern latitude city, odds are cross-country skiing is on the menu of outdoor activities for certain demographics. Two American women winning gold in 2018 is also a wonderful sales pitch to aspirants. This healthy lifestyle and medal-winning context afford stakeholders a modicum of breathing room when considering marketing approaches to athlete recruitment and the ability to maintain pre-existing participants. Although the problem of attrition in youth sports is real, and cross-country skiing is no exception, junior-level ski racing remains popular in traditional cross-country ski hotbeds.

The Para side of the sport, however, must take a more active approach when it comes to marketing. Drawing athletes into the Para Nordic disciplines requires a significant time investment with national-level coaches often meeting in small groups with raw beginners to introduce their respective disciplines.

A few weeks back, US Para Nordic hosted a Zoom call for visually impaired (VI) athletes and families interested in learning more about how to become involved.

Two US Para Nordic coaches were on the Zoom call, Kristina Trygstad-Saari, and BethAnn Chamberlain, along with several veteran athletes and a few newcomers. In terms of grassroots, this was the seeding process. A visually impaired participant logged in from Los Angeles, another potential visually impaired athlete, a teenager, logged in from Indiana. Neither had easy access to snow. Neither had skied before.

A basic Q & A ensued. There was nothing extravagant about the presentation. Lots of nuts and bolts. Let’s call it pithy. Yet, the level of engagement was high. The meeting, which could have trended towards perfunctory, was not. By the end of the call, maybe 45 minutes later, the hook was sunk.

My intent for listening in was to learn how US Para Nordic pitches their sport and attracts prospects to their respective pipeline, and then write up a brief story. I became sidetracked.

***

Fifty-two-year-old VI biathlete Michael Stone, who spoke during the Zoom call, was my hook setter. Stone resides in Boulder, Colorado. According to Stone, his first race of any kind was the Bolder Boulder — an iconic 10-kilometer road running race that snakes through Boulder’s neighborhoods and finishes in a packed Folsom Field on the University of Colorado campus.

“That was probably one of the most spectacular days of my life. And since then, over 21 years, I’ve done over 230 races,” said Stone.

In 2003, Stone completed his first Ironman. That race, in contrast to Stone’s first Bolder Boulder experience, was inauspicious. The race was in New Zealand, and at one point Stone inadvertently took a wrong turn. “I remember one of the course marshals yelled, ‘What are you blind?’ At that moment, I actually wondered if I was,” recalled Stone. “I mean, I remember feeling very, you know, dejected.”

There’s a backstory here worth telling. Post-New Zealand, Stone returned to his childhood home in Chicago to seek advice from his family physician.

The abridged version of Stone’s adolescence, which the doctor took notes on, goes something like this. A caring family that exposed Stone and his siblings to sports and the arts. There were eventual vacations to Aspen for downhill skiing which Stone began to dread. “Everybody else would be exhilarated and I’d be miserable,” said Stone. “We’d be skiing in the trees and I’d fall, and not even know why. I was screwed, even in good light. And it should have been a good indicator that something wasn’t adding up.”

There were attempts at ball sports where Stone often could not see the ball thrown his way. There were laughs, and the “he sucks” microaggressions.

“At some point, you just stay away from sports because it’s intimidating, it just eats away at your soul,” said Stone. “For a young person struggling, with their vision of something undiagnosed like dyslexia, every aspect of life is going to be very hard.”

Stone withdrew. He folded himself into music where he learned to play the guitar and other instruments. “That’s where I hid from the world,” he said.

But if you thrive on moving your body, as Stone does, the draw of sports can be irresistible. Stone eventually found martial arts, and then rock climbing – which initially brought him out to Boulder. According to Stone, hearing his climbing partners constantly tell him where to place his hands and feet pushed him out, saying it became too exhausting emotionally. He purchased a bike and he began to run.

Then there was that goose-bump Bolder Boulder where Stone came running into that packed stadium. “It was just such a spectacular feeling that I forgot all about anything related to my vision or whatever,” said Stone. “It was simply that I ran six miles and that was huge.” Then came the Ironmans and the demeaning “What are you blind?” comment from the course marshall.

***

Back in Chicago, Stone visited his physician and then a specialist who sent him to another specialist. The MD-PhD diagnosed Stone with a genetic degenerative disease called retinitis pigmentosa. The disease affects the retina’s photoreceptors.

“The doctor was just beside himself,” said Stone. “He asked, ‘How have you gotten through life like this?’ It was like he knew everything, and he quickly told me what my life was like because obviously, it was a familiar story to him with sports and with school and family life, everything, he just sort of knew it. He had been diagnosing these things for probably 40 years. He was shocked that I had gone through life undiagnosed.”

Stone said he had most likely been legally blind since he was five. His youngest brother was also diagnosed with the disease. Eventually, they traced the gene back in the family’s genealogical tree.

The diagnosis helped Stone define his life trajectory. But as a successful hotel and spa developer, Stone has not defined himself solely as an endurance athlete. He is, like many role models among us, capable of compensating, adapting, thriving, and finding community. Stone understands his predicament but moves forward. He knows he’ll occasionally miss his toothbrush with the toothpaste, have issues making a simple cup of coffee, or have difficulty finding a public bathroom. Stone navigates a physical and emotional culture set up for the able-bodied. He’s still out there riding, running, swimming, skiing, and running a business — all at a high level.

During some background reading about life as a visually impaired person, I came across this excellent story in the New York Times: Is There a Right Way to Act Blind by Andrew Leland. In short, Leland, who himself is blind, keenly explores how some people experience blindness, but also how sighted actors portray blind characters.

This passage from Leland’s piece caught my attention: “I recently spent a weekend with a friend who has been blind since childhood. I watched him pat and fumble for objects, but he did so in a way that struck me as utterly assured, and entirely unembarrassed — his fingers scanned the table just as your eyes might: quickly, casually, without apology. I aspire to this kind of blindness. The only way to get there, I suspect, is through rehearsal — practicing until my blind presence becomes convincing, if not to the world then at least to myself.”

Leland’s words, for me, resonated. It was a reminder that we travel the world on a gradient. We are constantly aspiring to be “utterly assured, and entirely unembarrassed.” I’m still trying to let that all sink in and imagine what that might be like for someone experiencing a disability and hailing a cab, or simply bathing. Let alone performing an endurance sport like biathlon at a high level.

***

Stone discovered cross-country skiing over a decade ago and ultimately found an interest in biathlon. Para biathletes use an audio rifle with no live rounds. As the biathlete aims closer to the target, remember, this is the visually impaired class, the noise projected from the rifle becomes higher pitched. The VI athlete pulls the trigger when they sense via the rifle’s audio signal the shot is on target. Like able-bodied biathlon, keeping range time to a minimum is part of the challenge.

Stone admits, although he is an accomplished triathlete, that he desires more independence. He rides on a tandem bike, and in some situations remains tethered to a sighted guide when running. Stone equates freedom with cross-country skiing. The closest he feels to being able-bodied is when he is skiing and then shooting on the biathlon range, explained Stone.

“Cross-country skiing is one of the most spectacular sensations because it’s the closest thing I get to freedom and independence out of any sport I do,” said Stone. “I’m not tethered cross-country skiing, as I would be for running or swimming like we do in triathlon, I’m not on the back of a tandem. We’re on our own skis, on our own snow, and we have our own mistakes to make. We do get lefts and we get rights and a few whoops as verbal cues from a sighted guide, just to keep straight. And once we drop down in the shooting range, as we always shoot prone, it is pure freedom.”

In the Para Nordic biathlon world, VI athletes are relatively scarce. That makes sense considering the logistics of transport, arranging a sighted guide if needed, and having access to a rifle and shooting range, let alone snow. Stone, for his part, has become an unassuming ambassador who wants to give back to a community of coaches and peers who have refeinforced his self-assurance. He is, as I came to realize, the perfect salesperson for any athlete hoping to get motivated and seize any opportunity.

“I’m not a young guy, and so when there are younger people, say in their teens and 20s and 30s, I don’t want them to miss out on this opportunity to experience biathlon — not to mention, just to be able to experience the love we get from the coaches,” said Stone. “I really don’t know why it’s there, they’re like higher beings to me. Nobody should face the world alone. And the fact that there are people that are willing and capable to at least try to walk in your shoes and create an opportunity for you when there are really few opportunities in this world that will be generated like this. I live by only a couple really important codes and one of them is you owe your best to the people who love you most.”

My impression from Stone is that he could do most anything he wanted with his life. It’s a good thing he found cross-country skiing and biathlon. We’re better for it.

For information about becoming a sighted guide, or becoming involved as an athlete, here’s a link to US Para Nordic’s recruiting survey.

To learn more about how a VI biathlete shoots on the range, watch the video below. The on-range segment begins at approximately 2:55.

On April 9th, the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bozeman, MT released information and qualification criteria for their newly founded elite team. As you skim what it takes to earn a spot at each tier of the program, it may catch your attention that the cross country, biathlon, and para nordic are housed within the same program. This single team approach reflects the growth and development at Crosscut in connection with its partnership with the US Para Nordic (USPN) program, which has proven beneficial to both parties.

The program at Crosscut is still in its nascent stages, however, in the unofficial first season last year, Crosscut Elite Team members racked up a slew of accomplishments including earning spots at the Youth Olympic Games, IBU World Junior Championships, IBU Cups, IBU Open European Championships, FIS North American World Cup Sprint Tour (these spots were eventually missed due to cancellations), and World Para Nordic Skiing World Cups. 

Simply put: the goal of the Crosscut Elite Team is supporting athletes of all abilities as they advance toward the highest levels of ski racing and biathlon, beit a Paralympic team, the US Biathlon Team, or the US Ski Team. 

To learn more about the evolution and goals of the elite program at Crosscut, FasterSkier spoke with Nick Michaud, who keeps his hands full as the USPN Development Coach while also coaching the elite program across abilities. 

Before becoming a coach, Michaud was a member of the Bridger Ski Foundation (BSF) Elite Team through the 2018 Olympic Season where he came up one spot short of making the team for PyeongChang. A native of Fort Kent, ME, he grew up skiing and competing in biathlon with the Maine Winter Sports Center, coached by John Farra and Eileen Carey, who went on to become leaders of the US Para Nordic Team. Farra has since transitioned to the role of head performance general manager of USA Paratriathlon, with Carey advancing into his spot as head coach. 

Michaud explained that as his own ski career was waning, he sought advice from Carey about possible next steps, expressing an interest in coaching.

“The motivation has been that the people in my life who impacted me the most were coaches, and I’ve always known that I wanted to teach or coach — to work with people in some capacity.”

In March of 2019, Carey presented Michaud with the opportunity to travel with the USPN team on a World Cup trip in Sapporo, Japan as an assistant coach. Michaud leapt at the opportunity, describing it as “so much fun”, and was offered a position with USPN later that year. Although he lacked specific experience working with adaptive athletes, he explained that the mission of USPN excited him more so than other possible coaching roles. 

“I’m even more drawn to the movement of the Paralympic foundation right now to increase access for this sport,” said Michaud. “Nordic skiing is a pretty homogenous group of people, so it’s exciting to be part of an organization that is finding ways to break out of that a little bit.”

According to Carey, Michaud’s personality and growth mindset ready him for the challenge of coaching the adaptive team.  

“Nick has a natural curiosity that makes him a great fit for the role,” wrote Carey in an email to FasterSkier. “For para athletes, it is not possible to approach coaching with a ‘one size fits all’ solution.  I believe this is also true of all coaching, but it is elemental to coaching athletes who have such different mechanics from one another.  When there is no “norm”, you always have to be willing to search and invent.

“I have known Nick since he was 13 and he has always had that curiosity, the willingness to question and try (and fail!) at things in order to progress. More than anything, that seems to make a great coach, so it was natural for me to try to get him some experience in the para coaching world when I found out he was hanging up the race skis.”

Over the last few seasons, Bozeman has become a home base for the USPN team, who are spread throughout the country for much of the year. The location has proved ideal given its proximity to an airport, and quality skiing that was conducive to sit skiing. This sparked a connection with Crosscut, who Carey explained has repeatedly “gone the extra mile” to support the growth and success of the para nordic program. 

In a 2016 interview with the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, WA, Carey wrote, “The single-biggest component to [the rise of the US Para Nordic team] has been our relationship to Crosscut Mountain Sports Center. All of our competitions consist of half cross-country races and half biathlon. Before we moved to Bozeman, we didn’t have a place to shoot consistently. When we arrived in Bozeman and identified that as a need, Crosscut Mountain Sports Center and Bridger Biathlon Club provided the piece we were missing. They built us a range and have supported us in so many ways to make sure our athletes have what they need for success. It has been an incredible experience for our athletes and team and one that will continue to be a huge component to our future success.”

The impact of Crosscut’s support of the USPN program has extended beyond the immediate circle of national team athletes and coaches, promoting access to adaptive athletes of all levels. 

“It’s been really cool to see the partnership leech out to other parts of the community,” said Michaud. “For example, Eagle Mount is an adaptive ski program in Bozeman and Crosscut is partnered with them. When we build sit ski trails or sit ski teaching manuals for the Paralympic team, it’s not just for coaches trying to prepare skiers to be the best sit skiers in the world, but it also gets shared with a program like Eagle Mount, or equipment gets passed on to them. So Crosscut is increasing access to skiing, not just for the best sit skiers in the world, but for all adaptive skiers in Bozeman.”

Michaud explained that the USPN team also passes on used equipment to Eagle Mount and other programs. As sit ski and adaptive equipment is highly specialized and expensive, this creates access that clubs may not otherwise be able to afford. 

“We’re always getting new sit skis and trying out new models, and all of a sudden, we have a fleet of sit skis that are getting retired and pushed out to other parts of the community, not just in Bozeman but throughout the country.”

He continued that as the USPN program rises and technology advances, they are passing on better and better equipment. They have also worked to develop a sit ski teaching manual, which has been passed on to adaptive programs as a resource to coaches. 

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Great to see @usparanordicski training at @crosscut_mt this morning! Trails are in great shape headed for Official Opening this weekend! #crosscutmt #letitsnow @usbiathlonteam

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Carey explained that the symbiotic relationship between Crosscut and USPN trickles down to supporting the development of new para athletes, as it creates access and opportunity for people of all abilities to try and grow in the sport. 

“One of our program’s main objectives is to provide high quality Nordic experiences to para athletes. To do that we need to find ways to increase access to the sport at all levels. Crosscut is committed to providing an outdoor venue that is for all members of the community. We share a vision that sport and the outdoors are for everyone. When that is the starting place, it is easy to find ways to collaborate to build a place that is for everyone.”

To visualize this message, one simply needs to go for a ski at Crosscut. 

“This winter the parking lot has been full everyday,” explained Michaud. “And there’s something beautiful about seeing an elite athlete doing intervals, flying around, with kiddos from the education program playing games in the stadium, and sit skiers shooting on the range and getting laps and maneuvering. Just seeing the full spectrum of anyone who could be skiing all in one place at once.”

In turn, by sharing trails with adaptive athletes, Crosscut users get to know them individually and learn more about what it takes to be an elite para athlete, thereby becoming more invested in their success. Michaud explained that this deeper understanding and excitement connects the community at Crosscut, and gives able bodied skiers the vocabulary to encourage para athletes in their training. 

“It’s been really nice for the national team to be able to come to Bozeman and have a home, have a place to train, have people that they know who are excited about what they’re doing. To understand skiing enough to be complimenting them on their maneuvering or their double pole, versus just saying, ‘That’s so cool that you’re doing that.’ There’s just another level of understanding.”

Further highlighting the mutual benefit the Crosscut community has received from their support and fostering of the USPN program, Michaud discussed the contributions of elite team member Ruslan Reiter across programs. Reiter, who was born with an underdeveloped right arm, is the only member of the national team that competes in standing events, versus sit ski. Outside of skiing, he is pursuing a degree in aviation at Montana State University in Bozeman.

“He has really embodied this collaboration,” Michaud shared. “I’m also helping run the elite team for Crosscut. Since he’s a standing athlete, he fits into that fairly well on the day to day, then he travels with the Paralympic team in the winter. He’s super fortunate that he gets to be a part of this team of professional athletes in Bozeman and also part of the national team that’s traveling mostly in Europe… Our success is very intertwined with one another. Ruslan has gotten to be a part of that and it’s really benefited both groups in a lot of ways.”

Reiter was born in Russia but was adopted by a family in Maine, where he began his ski career in middle school. Just after finishing high school, Reiter made the 2018 Paralympic Team, landing just outside the top-10 in his best performance, 11th place in the 12.5-kilometer biathlon event. Michaud explained that Reiter’s presence elevates the motivation and dedication of his teammates. 

“We’re in the weight room at the Mountain Project with the Crosscut Elite Team, and we’ve got a strength plan that I’ve been able to put together with a strength coach at the USOPC. These athletes who are in their mid-20’s who have been training for a long time and are really high level are seeing Ruslan doing pull ups with one hand, and there’s just no excuse to step it up, to not find a way to get better, because they’re a part of that culture. So that has been really tangible and awesome.”

Like the elite program and partnership with USPN, the Crosscut Mountain Sport Center is in a stage of growth and development. In the summer of 2017, the organization purchased the Bohart Ranch Property, which was home to a cross country trail system since the 1980’s, with the vision of creating a robust resource for the Bozeman community that doubled as training grounds for the Bridger Biathlon Club and USPN program. 

As Crosscut began developing a vision ranch property, the input of those they wished to serve guided the approach. Carey explained that Crosscut’s inclusive and dedicated approach has been paramount to creating a ski center that supports athletes of all abilities. 

“They are starting the process of developing programming, events, and a venue with the lens of ‘How are we going to create these things in a way that serves everyone in our community?’. As a part of that community, we are part of all the conversations. In the end, Crosscut’s willingness to have the conversation through that lens has been critical to our program’s competitive success and I think will be central to Crosscut being able to live their mission.”

It is the wish that Crosscut becomes an example for other cross country ski areas, dispelling myths about what it takes to create opportunities and access for para athletes. 

“It’s everyone’s hope that this shows that there’s no reason that other clubs can’t have an adaptive component or a para component, and it shouldn’t be that hard,” said Michaud. “It just takes a little bit of intentional work to make it more accessible.”

Carey elaborated on this point, explaining that the increased accessibility additionally benefits the larger community. 

“They are helping to show that creating programs and venues that work for para athletes doesn’t have to be a sacrifice or an afterthought,” wrote Carey. “There are many ways to do business that enhance experience for para athletes that also make sense for the larger community.  Ultimately, just like anything, having a club that works for para athletes is as simple as deciding it is so. Are there unique challenges and considerations? Absolutely. But I think if you start to look to the clubs and coaches who have had para athletes, they would also tell you there are many benefits.

“If you want to make it happen, you can make it happen.  And our program is set up to help with that process in the service of our goal to make Nordic skiing possible for more members of our community.”

Moving forward, the elite program at Crosscut hopes to bring a few new adaptive athletes to Bozeman from outside the national team, supporting them as they move through the development pipeline. Michaud explained that the program aspires to rise alongside the US Para Nordic program. 

“We’ll see the program growing at Crosscut in the same way that the development for the Paralympic team around the country has been happening. It will no longer just be a home training site when they’re in town during the winter, but we’ll start to see more development, more para athletes training with Crosscut throughout the year.”

Speaking to the broader vision of US Para Nordic, Carey expanded on Michaud’s statement, including enforcement of the message that other clubs can follow Crusscut’s lead in integrating para athletes into their existing programming. 

“We are working to increase the development of our sport especially in the standing and visually impaired categories,” wrote Carey. “US Ski and Snowboard and USBA clubs and coaches are also our development pathways for para athletes and there are many clubs and teams around the country who have para athletes integrated into their programming. Crosscut created para specific criteria for their elite team and named para athletes to their team. In this and many other ways, they are a tangible representation of our vision of how development can work for para athletes. They are showing that it can be done, that they have the tools to do it, and that there are benefits to it for everyone.” 

Of the members of the U.S. Para Nordic team, more than half compete at the highest level in both summer and winter sports. Instead of quadrennial, their training is designed for biennial Paralympic cycles, oscillating between sports each year with an overall focus shift toward whichever Games is approaching fastest. 

And the goal is not simply to compete in both rounds of the Games, it is to bring home medals. 

Illinois based Oksana Masters is a four-time Paralympian with eight medals; she earned two gold, three gold, and two bronze medals in cross country and biathlon, and a bronze medal in rowing — the first American medal in the trunk and arms mixed double scull category. After a back injury in 2014, she switched from rowing to cycling, and went on to qualify for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she walked away just shy of the medals, finishing 4th and 5th and hungry for more. 

Her teammate, Kendall Gretsch, took home two gold medals from the 2018 Paralympics in cross country and biathlon and is a three time world champion and five time national champion in paratriathlon, an event that was not part of the Summer Paralympics for her category until the upcoming Games in Tokyo. Gretsch has been living and training at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs since March of 2019. 

Under normal circumstances, there would be an 18-month gap between the summer Paralympics in Tokyo and the winter Games in Beijing. However, on March 24th it was announced that the Tokyo Games would be pushed back to August of 2021 due to health and safety concerns surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic. For athletes also competing in Beijing in February 2022, this leaves roughly six months to change gears and prepare to again be at peak fitness, which is no small challenge. 

Let’s take a step back. In mid-March when the scope of the pandemic became apparent and Europe and the United States began to rapidly shut down, Masters was in Östersund, Sweden about to compete at the World Championships in biathlon. The team had arrived a few days prior to the start for training, but plans changed at the last minute. 

“Instead of waking up to a message from your coach saying, ‘Hey, it’s race day!’ Instead, it was, ‘Bad News: Sweden is cancelling all events that are 500 people or more,’” Masters told FasterSkier in a call.

She recalled feeling “shocked” as her season ended so abruptly. Her plan had been to leave halfway through the World Championships in order to head to an essential Tokyo qualifying event for cycling. 

Her initial reaction was frustration that she had missed valuable training time for cycling by staying with the nordic team through mid-March, but with the understanding she now has of the scope and severity of the pandemic, her perspective has shifted. That said, she is also fully aware of the challenge she now faces to peak for two separate sports in such a short period of time. 

“This is way bigger than sports and the Olympics… [The organizers] made the right call [to postpone] and I’m happy with that, but in my ideal world, I wish that this never happened. I’m sure a lot of people do. Because they postponed to 2021 and my focus is to make it to 2022 as well, it made that transition window from Tokyo to Beijing from over a year to basically six months. My sports are two separate sports — they do not go hand in hand, they are complete opposite motions and I have to basically start over with my fitness, minus the endurance.”

Finding the silver lining, she added that the Olympic postponement does allow her more time to prepare for cycling. 

“The good side is that because I was competing full-time on the nordic side and did the World Cup season, I missed a lot of training time on the bike where my competitors were traveling to Spain and all these warm places to get on the road and spend those hours on their bikes. So now this is allowing me to work on my bike that I’m building and at the same time just get more time on the bike and get sport specific strength.”

Because she too needed to qualify for Tokyo, Gretsch had ended her nordic season before the World Championships and was in Florida at the main triathlon qualifier when the country began to shut down. She was slated to compete on back to back weekends, both of which were cancelled the day prior to the first race. It is currently unclear what Gretsch will need to do in order to make the U.S. triathlon team for Tokyo.  

“At this point, it’s kind of just waiting to see when we’ll be able to race again. Once that’s solidified more, the international triathlon union will have to come up with new qualification criteria and then, from that, the US will come up with new qualification… I’ll definitely have to compete in a couple more international events to solidify earning a country spot for the US.”

Aside from the uncertainty regarding travel and the seemingly impossible challenge of holding the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics without furthering the spread of the coronavirus, many athletes were also unable to access facilities and resources they depended on to practice skills and adequately prepare for their sport. For Masters, the inability to access a gym impeded her training routine. 

“As a Paralympic athlete, in my two sports — especially for skiing — I rely on strength training,” Masters explained. “I lift three times a week. So that took a big toll.” 

Her normal spring routine would include baseline metabolic testing and training camps with her coach, who is from Germany. Since he is currently unable to leave the country, Masters is not sure when she will be able to meet with him for these measures to evaluate her training. Overall, she is hitting reset on her plan and embracing the time to change gears at a more manageable pace.

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“In my case, we’re kind of starting all over and making sure the base is good in cycling,” she said. “So it’s a lot of endurance riding, a lot of time on the bike, and just adjusting back to it the right way, as opposed to coming off the nordic season, trying to make the qualifiers in June, it was going to be shortcutting all that, which is really hard to do.”

Meanwhile, life at the OTC looks significantly different than Gretsch is accustomed to, with less than twenty people remaining on the campus. Apart from not being able to train in the pool or access the biathlon range, she is no longer able to get massage or other sports medicine treatments that she could previously. She does still have access to the OTC cafeteria, but meals are now take-out, meaning the remaining athletes on campus spend much of their day isolated in their rooms.  

Not being able to swim has been the biggest impact on Gretsch’s training, as this would normally be a time of building volume for triathlon. She explained that she spends ten minutes per day on a stretch band swim trainer, but it is far from replicating the stimulus of the pool. She also borrowed some kettlebells and weights from the gym so she can do some strength training from her room.  

“I think the good thing is that I’m still able to do two of the three sports in triathlon,” said Gretsch. “So even though I’m not swimming right now, I have been able to bike whether it’s inside on a trainer, or outside when the weather is nice here, and the same in the racing chair.” 

Both athletes are feeling uncertainty about what the 2020-2021 nordic season will look like and how cycling or triathlon qualifying events will fit into the mix. Currently, a cross-country World Championship and an Olympic venue test event in Beijing are scheduled for February and March. But, seasons may need to be cut short for Tokyo qualifiers. Both athletes have found solace in the partnership between their two sets of coaches. 

“I think the really awesome thing is that both my sets of coaches for nordic and triathlon are really good about being open and communicating with each other about the situation,” said Gretsch. “It’s obviously a really unique situation that no one expected to be in, but in such an uncertain time, I have a lot of confidence about the situation going well just because I know that everyone just wants to work well together and are understanding that both of these sports are a priority to me.”

Interview with Kendall Gretsch following Tokyo 2020 Paralympics postponement.

Masters echoed the sentiment, adding that no one really knows how to handle the situation.

“They’ve been really flexible,” said Masters. “Knowing each of our different circumstances and just waiting to see what the new race schedule is going to be and what the key events and races are for me to go to before they start sending workouts. It’s a little bit playing it by ear and making it up as you go.” 

Moving forward, she is staying positive and doing her best to adapt with the changes as they come.

“I try to keep it in perspective. For the most part, everyone is in the same boat… You can lose energy by focusing on all the things you cannot control. It is what it is. For me, I’m just trying to do my part for this whole coronavirus outbreak and just be home, be smart with my training, and just make each day count still and get stronger in some way.”

Interview with Oksana Masters following Tokyo 2020 Paralympics postponement.