Audrey Crowley, Alpine skiing (standing)
The first-time Paralympian only turned 19 at the start of March, but she has been in the news for her skiing prowess since she was a second-grader. She’s also going to Italy on a roll, having reached the podium in two World Cup downhill races in early February. In the 2024-25 season, she had two World Cup podium finishes in giant slalom, and she took bronze in giant slalom and fifth in slalom at the world championships, where the other three events were canceled. Though she was born without her lower right arm, she was still an honorable mention All-State softball player in Colorado.
Jake Adicoff, biathlon/cross-country skiing (visually impaired)
In 2018, Adicoff graduated from Bowdoin, where he competed alongside able-bodied athletes on the cross-country ski team, and won silver at the Paralympics in the same year. Then he retired. Three years later, he reconsidered and was back in time to compete in 2022, where he took two more silvers and earned a relay gold with a dramatic anchor leg to rally the team from fourth place to first. The 2024 World Cup overall champion has an uncanny world championship record – nine individual races, nine medals (four gold), including two wins in last year’s events.
Oksana Masters, biathlon/cross-country skiing (sitting)
A fixture in both summer and winter Paralympics for 14 years, Masters is looking for her 20th Paralympic medal and 10th gold. In the summer editions, the Ukraine-born athlete has four cycling golds and one rowing bronze. The rest of her medals have come in winter sports – three gold in cross-county, two in biathlon. The 2020 Laureus World Sports Award winner for disability sports missed the 2024-25 season while dealing with a bone infection in her leg but returned to World Cup competition this season and dominated, finishing no lower than second in any individual cross-country event and winning five of her last seven biathlon World Cup races. Masters currently has all the Paralympic medals in her household but is hoping that will change this year – her fiancé, Aaron Pike, also a biathlete, is in his eighth Paralympics and is searching for his first medal. Pike has won one gold in each of the last two world championships.
Kendall Gretsch, biathlon/cross-country skiing (sitting)
Until 2018, no US athlete had ever won a biathlon medal in the Olympics or the Paralympics. Gretsch and Masters changed that, winning gold and silver in the 6km biathlon. (Dan Cnossen, who is also on this year’s Paralympic team, became the first US male biathlete to win a medal, also in 2018.) Gretsch also took gold in the 12km cross-country race. She won her next gold medal just two years later in the Summer Paralympics, winning the triathlon. Back on the snow in 2022, she won a full set of medals (gold, silver, bronze) in the biathlon events. This season, she was second to Masters in the cross-country World Cup and fourth in the biathlon World Cup. Between her three sports, Gretsch has a staggering 34 world championship medals, including 19 gold.
Sydney Peterson, biathlon/cross-country skiing (standing)
The neuroscience graduate student at the University of Utah took a complete set of medals in her Paralympic debut in 2022. The next year, she went through a series of surgeries to slow the progress of dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that first affected her around age 13. In 2025, she took an individual bronze and relay silver in cross-country.
Noah Elliott, snowboard
The 2024-25 World Cup champion and double medalist from the 2018 Paralympics took home another honor last year – an ESPY award as the top athlete with a disability. While battling osteosarcoma in the mid-2010s, he met Brenna Huckaby, who was on her way to her own decorated Paralympic career. When he had his leg amputated due to complications, the longtime skateboarder immediately asked Huckaby how to get into snowboarding. In 2018, he won gold in the banked slalom and bronze in snowboardcross. He battled through injuries to compete in Beijing in 2022 but missed the podium in both events. He rebounded with gold and silver at the 2023 world championships and two more medals in 2025.
Brenna Huckaby, snowboard
Huckaby has won three Paralympic gold medals and one bronze, along with five world championships. She won the first two in 2018, then hit a roadblock when the LL-1 class (severe lower-limb disability) wasn’t included in the 2022 Paralympics. Though the LL-2 class features athletes with less severe lower-limb disabilities than LL-1 athletes, meaning Huckaby would be at a disadvantage in LL-2 competition, the International Paralympic Committee barred her from competing. She went to court in Germany to win an injunction to allow her to compete, and she claimed gold in banked slalom and bronze in snowboardcross. In 2024, she won the second ESPY of her career.
Mike Schultz, snowboard
“Monster Mike” had his left leg amputated above the knee after a 2008 accident in a snowmobile race. He has developed his own prosthetics, one of which is held by the Smithsonian. He recently made a video for Wired magazine answering questions about his sport and his self-made prosthetic. In 2018, he won gold in snowboardcross and silver in banked slalom, then added snowboardcross silver in 2022. He also has four world championship medals and won the ESPY for Best Male Athlete with a Disability in 2018.
Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer, curling
US Paralympians have never won a medal in curling. With mixed doubles added to the Paralympic programme, Emt and Dwyer have a chance at a breakthrough. The duo finished 4-2 in the 2025 world championships, missing out on the playoffs on tiebreaking criteria. Emt is the oldest person (56) on the US roster.
Declan Farmer, ice hockey
There will be no controversy about inviting the US women’s team to Washington DC because the Paralympics don’t yet include a women’s competition. The only Paralympic competition is technically “open,” but women are rarely included on rosters. Women’s sled hockey is making its case for inclusion and held its first world championship in 2025, with the USA outscoring opponents 35-1 to claim gold.
For now, we will have to make do with the open category at the Paralympics. The USA had become a Para ice hockey (formerly known as sled or sledge hockey) power in the years just before Farmer’s arrival on the scene, winning gold in 2010 in between world championships in 2009 and 2012. The USA lost to Canada in the world championship final in 2013, when Farmer made his debut and led the team in scoring – at age 15. The next year, he was a Paralympic gold medalist and an ESPY winner. The USA and Canada have faced off in every world championship and Paralympic final since then, with the USA stretching their Paralympic win streak to four and taking three straight world championships through 2023, when Farmer was named Best Male Winter Athlete by the International Paralympic Committee. Canada managed to break the USA’s streak in the 2024 world championships, but the Americans reclaimed the title in 2025. Also last year, Farmer became the first US player to reach the 200-goal mark in his career.
