Two Minnesotans win silver at 2022 Paralympics
Mar 08, 2022 06:06AM ● By Editor
Photo: Twitter
From KARE 11 News • March 7, 2022
Congratulations are in order for Minnesota natives and Mike Schultz and Sydney Peterson!
Schultz, a snowboarder from St. Cloud, Minnesota and two-time Paralympian added another medal to his collection this morning in Beijing, winning silver in the men's snowboard cross SB-LL1. The Kimball Area High School alum previously won two medals at the PyeongChang games in 2018: gold in snowboardcross and silver in banked slalom.
For Peterson, the 2022 games are her first Paralympic appearance and now first Paralympic medal in Nordic skiing. The 20-year-old from Lake Elmo, Minnesota, is relatively new to para sports. She developed reflex sympathetic dystrophy and dystonia in her left arm at 13, which over time began to also affect mobility in leg.
Last year, Peterson won silver in middle-distance cross-country and the cross-country sprint at the World Para Snow Sports Championships, along with bronze in long distance cross-country.
Schultz became an amputee after competing in a snowcross event in 2008 and fracturing his knee so badly that it eventually had to be amputated. But that didn't stop Schultz from continuing to pursue his love of actions sports. After the surgery, he built his own prosthetic knee and went on to earn a motocross adaptive silver medal at the X Games.
An athlete, author and public speaker, Schultz created his company BioDapt after his amputation, which "designs, manufactures and distributes high performance lower-limb prosthetic components used for action sports and other similar activities."
And by the looks of it, BioDapt has lived up to its mission at the 2022 Paralympics. Twenty-six athletes in Beijing are using equipment engineered by Schultz.
On top of now being a 3-time Paralympic medalist, Schultz is also a three-time ESPN X Games motocross medalist, six-time X Games gold medalist in snocross and 2019 - ESPN Winter X Games adaptive snow bikecross gold medalist.
To see the original story and read related reporting, follow this link to the KARE 11 News website. https://www.kare11.com/article/sports/olympics/minnesotan-mike-schultz-wins-silver-2022-paralympics/...
