MONTANA IS HOME TO JUST ONE OLYMPIC OR PARALYMPIC TEAM

BEFORE 2015, America’s para nordic skiing athletes and coaches did not have a home base in America.

That meant that even as they were traveling internationally for training camps and races, they had no place back home to reconvene. This forced the coaches and team directors to set up still more remote training camps between races, with the athletes living out of suitcases.

“It was expensive and it put a lot of stress on the team,” says Eileen Carey, Director of U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing. “We were also oftencompromising our biathlon training because there aren’t a lot of places in the U.S. that have biathlon ranges with the 10 meter air rifle targets we use.”

When Eileen started looking for a home for the squad in 2015, it didn’t take much research to put the greater Bozeman area on the top of the list. Access to great skiing in town and on local golf courses, the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center, and consistent snowfall and a long season up at Big Sky and West Yellowstone? Check. The facilities and coaches needed to support world-class skiing? Check. But it wasn’t just the accessibility that earned Bozeman the designation, it was the community support Nordic-skiing-friendly southwest Montana provided.

LEARN MORE www.usparanordic.org

Nordic skiing, if you haven’t noticed, is taking off locally. U.S. Paralympics Nordic athlete Dani Aravich moved to Bozeman in 2021 after she spent her first summer on the team in Park City. “Just in my few years living here, southwest Montana has become a hot spot for collegiate, non-para Nordic skiers in summer and winter,” says Dani. “My coach came up through the Bridger Ski Foundation and he was a former elite-level nordic skier. We can strength train at the Mountain Project gym. When we need help with our biathlon rifles we can get it from the specialists at Altius Handcrafted Firearms in West Yellowstone. In summer, having Bozeman and Big Sky as your backyard means you have mountains to run and hikes to do. Now I call Montana my home and train with the team 20 minutes up Bridger Canyon at Crosscut. As an athlete, you can build your own life here, which is important because we have enough travel as it is.”

Today, the only Olympic or Paralympic sport to call Montana home is Paralympics Nordic Skiing.

The move to Montana is paying dividends. All athletes are unique. Some are driven intrinsically, others by external rewards. Some excel at skills and tactics while others rely on big aerobic engines and absolute power. Trying to find the right path to success is always a customized process that takes place between athlete and coach. But with Paralympics coaching, that dynamic is even more important, and it takes time and consistency to develop it.

“Working with para athletes requires a more athlete-centered approach,” says Dani’s U.S. Paralympics Nordic Coach Nick Michaud, who also acts as a liaison between Crosscut and the Para-Nordic team. “Because I have no reference or understanding of what it is like to go about life with one hand, limited vision, or spina bifida, I have to work harder to understand what each athlete’s needs are. For example, with skate skiing a straight ski is faster than a ski heading down the track at an angle. That makes sense from a physics perspective. But if I don't understand how an athlete’s legs work differently from mine, then it truly does not matter. I need to make space for the athlete to help me understand how

As with most sports, none of this happens overnight. The top Norwegian non-para skiers don’t come into their own, technique wise, until their early to mid twenties—after a lifetime spent honing technique. With “standing” Paralympic Nordic skiers like Dani, the rule of thumb is eight years of training. As a former track and field athlete who crossed over to Nordic, Dani is in year four of that development. Add in the fact that a training week can take upwards of 40 hours of an athlete's time, and a home base with all the required benefits is a must. There’s no way to overstate that.

“Having the National Team coaches is why I qualified for the Beijing Paralympic Games in 2022,” says Dani.

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