Grace Miller competes in the Women’s Standing Cross Country Long Distance Race during the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games on March 7, 2022 in Zhangjiakou, China.
Along with Peterson, Grace Miller (University of Alaska Fairbanks), new Paralympic silver medalist Jake Adicoff (Bowdoin College) and his guide Sam Wood (Middlebury College) competed in Nordic skiing at the university.
Miller said being on the Alaska Ski Team has provided him with a cohesive group of athletes to train with throughout the year. She trained twice a day, including early every morning, forcing her to push herself even harder.
Peterson said she was in 10th grade when she started taking skiing more seriously and training year-round. She started thinking she could ski in college.
Peterson considered different schools, and St. Lawrence seemed to fit what she was looking for academically and with skiing. She reached out to Ethan Townsend, the St. Lawrence men’s and women’s Nordic ski coach, about running for the Saints.
“From there, things kind of worked out,” Peterson said.
Although Peterson suffers from a neurological condition that affects the left side of her body, she has always skied against able-bodied athletes, including in college.
“It’s my first season skiing with one arm, so even though I’ve had a disability in my arm since I was 13, I just fit in with everyone,” Peterson said. “There really wasn’t a difference.”
Dani Aravich poses for a photo during training ahead of the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games on March 1, 2022 in Zhangjiakou, China.
Aaron Pike and Dani Aravich, meanwhile, competed in college track and field. Both became dual-sport athletes who competed in the Paralympic Games in Tokyo in August and then qualified for Beijing as Para-Nordic skiers.
Each of them has experience in competition in endurance sports.
Pike, who has played in six consecutive Paralympic Games, competed in wheelchair track and field alongside 20-time Paralympic medalist Tatyana McFadden at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Aravich ran cross country at Butler University. She didn’t know she was eligible to compete in the Paralympic Games until after she graduated from college.
“I didn’t know anyone growing up who really looked like me, and I didn’t know anything about adaptive sports,” Aravich said. “I’ve always participated in able-bodied sports.”
Aravich was born without most of her left arm below the elbow. Once she knew she was eligible for the Paralympic Games, she set herself the lofty goal of qualifying for Tokyo and Beijing in less than a year.
She fulfilled her dream by running the 400 meters in Tokyo and now competing in Beijing.
Dan Cnossen is a former Navy SEAL who won six medals at the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Games, including a gold medal in biathlon. Previously, he was a member of the Naval Academy triathlon team despite not feeling comfortable in the water initially.
Cnossen went to the pool almost every day during his four years in the Navy to prepare for the swimming portion of the physical test required for Navy SEAL training. A few friends who were on the Navy varsity swim team even helped him with his swimming technique.
“I was always into sports when I was a kid, team sports, and I thought the military was a bit like a team sport, except the consequences can certainly be much more serious,” Cnossen said. “I went to the Naval Academy in peacetime. I didn’t know there would be a war a few years later.
Cnossen became good enough at swimming to compete in triathlons. He started Nordic skiing after losing both his legs in a 2009 explosion in Afghanistan.
A total of 17 members of the U.S. Paralympic team in Beijing competed in collegiate sport. At 46.7%, Para-Nordic Skiing has the highest percentage of current and former student-athletes, followed by Sledge Hockey at 41.2%.
Want to follow Team USA athletes during the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games? Visit TeamUSA.org/Beijing-2022-Paralympic-Games to view the competition schedule, medal table and results.
