Nichols became disabled in 2000 when she was out snowboarding with her friends. She decided to try a back flip. It would be her last attempt. She landed on her back, on a rock, and had to be transported to the hospital. Alana found out that she was paralyzed from the waist down.

She earned a basketball scholarship to the University of Arizona, and from there ended up on the US Paralympic team. She ended up with a gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.

Just 16 months ago, she started training as a Paralympic Skier. When she told her coach that she wanted to make it to Vancouver, they told her to forget about it, and to just concentrate on getting better. One gold medal later, she proved them wrong.

Congratulations, Alana, on winning the first gold medal for the United States in the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics; and for winning gold medals in both summer and winter sports.

A comment from a reader got me to thinking… most of us really don’t know about Paralympic skiing. I didn’t until I started reading about it. Since Thursday is Sports Day on this blog, I thought I’d write about adaptive skiing. How is it different than regular skiing?

Since there are several different kinds of disability, the Paralympic games allow people with different kinds of disabilities to compete. Currently, the Paralympic games have skiing races for visually impaired racers, sitting racers, and standing racers.

Visually impaired racers, of course have trouble seeing. You might have heard about Canada’s Brian McKeever, who was supposed to ski for Canada in the regular Vancouver Olympics. Turns out that some of Canada’s other skiers did so well in the earlier events that he was excluded from the final race selection. Had he competed in the Vancouver Olympics, he would have had to ski alone. In the Paralympics, he will be able to ski with a sighted guide. So will all the other racers.

Standing racers often use regular skis, although their poles are sometimes a little bit different than regular ski poles. Some of these skiers have lost a leg in a war zone, others are disabled in other ways, but can skill ski while standing. Downhill skiers can use prosthetic arms and legs.

Racers that can’t stand use what is called a sit-ski. This is a kind of chair attached to skis. These racers are often paraplegic for one reason or another.

Hopefully that explains some of the terms that I’ve been using, or that you might hear if you decide to watch some of the Paralympic broadcasts over the next couple of weeks. :-)

Klebl was born in Düsseldorf, Germany as a US citizen, and grew up in Austria, where he enjoyed skiing and snowboarding. In 1995, a snowboarding accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. He initially took up handcycling, but then was introduced to Nordic skiing. He uses a sitski during skiing events.

Klebl has a degree in economics from Syracuse University, but currently trains full time as a Paralympic athlete. He lives in Heber City, Colorado. We wish him luck. Sit-ski events begin on Sunday, March 14th, with the men’s 15 km race.