The United States has 72 members on its Paralympic Team, including a decent handful from Colorado, who will compete over the coming weeks at the 50th annual Paralympic Winter Games.
The Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026's opening ceremony is set for Friday, March 6. The competitions run from March 7 through March 15.
More than 40 of the athletes competing this month are returning Paralympians, according to Team USA.
“We are incredibly proud to introduce 72 remarkable athletes who will represent the United States in Italy at the Paralympic Winter Games,” said United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland. “Their journeys are defined by excellence, perseverance, discipline, and an unshakable belief in what is possible. We cannot wait to support them as they seize this moment and cheer them on as (they) shine on this global stage.”
According to Team USA's data on athletes' hometowns, here are the Coloradans competing in the Paralympics in the coming days.
Jasmin Bambur | Para alpine skiing | Granby
Bambur, 46, is back for his fifth Paralympic games after competing in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022.
Growing up, Bambur's family fled war-torn Bosnia to come to America and he joined multiple sports teams before falling in love with team handball. In 2000, he played for the U.S. National Handball Team while he was enrolled as a student at Middle Georgia College, according to Team USA. One night after practice, he fell asleep behind the wheel and crashed. His spinal cord injury from the crash made him a paraplegic.
The initial aftermath was difficult for him, but after meeting Paralympic gold medalist Bert Burns, he decided to try a few new sports. That ultimately led him to join the U.S. Paralympics Alpine Skiing team in 2012.
His best performance was a seventh-place finish at the Super G (sitting) competition during the Paralympic Games Sochi 2014.
Brittani Coury | Para snowboarding | Durango
Coury, 39, fell in love with snowboarding when she was just 13. Team USA reported that she broke her ankle in December 2003, which led to several surgeries. In June 2011, she chose to have her leg amputated below the knee.
During the 2018 Paralympics, she snagged the silver medal in banked slalom (lower limb 2 impaired). She also won silver at the 2021 World Cup for snowboardcross.
Coury works as a nurse and EMT.
Ralph DeQuebec | Sled hockey | Denver
DeQuebec was serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in 2012 when he was injured by an explosive in Afghanistan. This incident led to him becoming a bilateral above-knee amputee. He has also earned the Purple Heart for his service.
He is a two-time Paralympian and has won gold in the 2018 and 2022 sled hockey competition. He's one of several veterans on the team.
“It’s definitely (my time) to give back to the community and to the guys and to the next guys coming up,” he told Team USA in 2022. “As a veteran, I was afforded a lot of opportunities post-injury. I want to be able to bridge that gap and allow kids to have the same opportunities that veterans have. Let’s create a blueprint. Let’s figure out how to get this done. I have plans to help the sled hockey community in every way, shape and form that I can. I think a lot of that is going to come through creating a foundation to help kids accomplish their dreams in the sport of sled hockey.”
Malik Jones | Sled hockey | Aurora
Twenty-three-year-old Jones, who attended Gateway High School, was born with three fingers on each hand and missing tibia bones in his legs. When he was 10 months old, he had both legs amputated.
His hunger for play and happiness led him to try sled hockey. He quickly fell in love with the sport.
His resiliency translated to Paralympic gold in 2022. He became the second Black athlete to represent the United States in sled hockey in the Paralympics in 2022, Team USA reported.
Denver7 spoke with Jones in late January about seeking his second gold medal at the Paralympics.
“I’m playing a sport that I love that’s super physical, super fast paced, it’s skillful," Jones told Denver7's Nick Rothschild. "When I play hockey, I don’t feel like I have a disability, and I think that’s where I draw a lot of my confidence from.”
Watch Denver7's story with Malik Jones in the video below.
Zachary Miller | Para snowboarding | Silverthorne
Miller, 26, is self-described as "a massive nerd, huge gamer and insanely competitive," according to Team USA.
He was born with cerebral palsy and grew up in Silverthorne, where he took up para snowboarding.
He won his first world title in banked slalom in 2022 and while he injured two disks in his back, he still competed in the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and placed 11th in snowboard cross. He won his second world title in 2023.
Miller is now a seven-time world medalist.
He works as a coach at Adaptive Action Sports.
Mike Minor | Para snowboarding | Frisco
Minor, now 35, was born without a right forearm and wore a prosthetic until he was 5 years old. He competed in sports as a child and took up snowboarding when he was 7 years old, according to Team USA.
He told Team USA that he credits Paralympic snowboarder Andrew Hale as his idol.
Minor worked as a lift attendant on Copper Mountain before he started competing in Adaptive Action Sports.
"At the 2017 World Para Snowboard Championships in Big White, Canada, he secured gold in snowboard cross and silver in banked slalom. He also earned the Triple Crystal Globe that season," Team USA reported. "At the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, Minor clinched gold in the men's banked slalom SB-UL and bronze in the snowboard cross. His victory in banked slalom was particularly dramatic, as he overcame a crash in the snowboard cross to secure the gold."
Kyle Taulman | Para alpine skiing | Winter Park
Taulman, 24, suffered from a high-risk neuroblastoma that wrapped around his spinal cord and left him paralyzed when he was 2 years old, but he pursued through his childhood to compete on his local swim team in Steamboat Springs.
He has aspirations to become a Paralympic swimmer, but became more and more committed to skiing over time.
Taulman graduated from Steamboat Springs High School in 2024 and is attending the University of Colorado in Boulder. There, he told Team USA he helped CU's rec center get "six specialized sports wheelchairs that disabled students or even those with a broken leg can use to play wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis."
He is headed back to his second Paralympics after also competing in 2022.
Thomas Walsh | Para alpine skiing | Vail
Walsh, 31, began skiing when he was 2 years old and was already racing when he was 5, according to Team USA.
In May 2009, he was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma and his final radiation treatment in June 2010.
After graduating from Green Mountain Valley School, he headed east to the Savannah College of Art and Design to study performing arts, according to Team USA.
He won his first Paralympic medal in 2022. when he finished second in the men's standing giant slalom. It was the only medal that the U.S. Para alpine skiing team brought home that year.
His bio page on Team USA's website reads that "as a cancer survivor, he races for all those who cannot."
He competes in the LW4 sports class, which is for skiers with a disability in a lower extremity.
Pamela Wilson | Wheelchair curling | Westminster
Wilson, 70, started curling in 2010 but before that, she was a member of the U.S. Pan American team for track and field.
She competed in the 2022 Paralympics as well, where she placed fifth. At the 2023 world championships, she won silver.
She was involved in a car accident in 1978 that left her partially paralyzed and needing a wheelchair to get around. Her love for sports became a major part of her recovery, according to CU School of Medicine.
Denver7 spoke with her in January 2022, where she shared that it's never too late to pick up a new hobby. She picked up curling at the Denver Curling Club in Golden — she made Team USA within a decade.
Hear more from Wilson in our 2022 interview with her below.
Spencer Wood | Para alpine skiing | Attended University of Boulder
Wood, 29, who calls Vermont home, attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he graduated in 2021.
Like many others on this list, he started skiing when he was just 2 years old and was racing by the time he was 5. He started Para skiing competitively after attending a Disabled Sports USA race camp in 2014.
Wood suffered from a stroke while he was in the womb, resulting in hemiplegia of the right side of the body, according to Team USA.
He is returning to the Paralympics for the third time this year after also competing in 2018 and 2022.
