Para-snowboarder Kate Delson and aerial skier Kyra Dossa were added to Team USA this year.
Both women were at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard USANA Center of Excellence Friday training with around two dozen athletes, from bobsledders to alpine and moguls skiers.
20-year-old Delson said her journey to competitive sport started when she was three and her family visited Mammoth Lakes, California. Born with a congenital disability, Delson is missing most of the muscles in her right leg, including her calf, and it wasn’t clear if she would be able to participate in outdoor sports.
Her parents had her try skiing, but it didn’t go so well. A few years later, the San Diego native was able to try snowboarding.
“It took a little bit of begging to have me hop on a snowboard, because this was in the early 2000s and skiing was the main sport that the disabled sports programs around the world would offer. Snowboarding wasn’t as popular,” she said.
At the time, it was believed skiing was more straightforward for most people with disabilities. But not for Delson — on a board, she felt a world of difference.
“I have one weak leg missing some musculature. So being on skis and having that one week leg just dragging was painful and hard for me to progress, whereas when I’m on a snowboard and my two feet are working together, it works amazing,” she said. “Better than walking for me sometimes.”
Delson’s passion for snowboarding grew and grew. She eventually moved to Mammoth and started training slopestyle on jumps and rails. Later, she gave the Paralympic sport of para snowboard cross a try. Delson started training with Team Utah and started competing two seasons ago.
After winning two World Cups in Switzerland and Steamboat Springs, she was ranked second in the world in her discipline after the 2024-2025 season. Now a member of Team USA, she’s hoping to improve her skills so she can go to the Milan-Cortina 2026 Paralympics.
Delson is now training at least four days a week in Park City, doing strength and start gate exercises. She also traveled to Argentina for 10 days of intentional training on snow.
Like Delson, aerial skier Dossa is taking advantage of everything the Center of Excellence has to offer, including strength coaches, dietitians and the chance to train alongside other elite athletes.
Dossa has also only been competing for two seasons and her start in skiing wasn’t easy.
Like many aerials athletes, Dossa’s background is in gymnastics. At 17 years old, she decided she didn’t want to do college gymnastics and was looking for another sports avenue.
During a family vacation in Park City, she visited the Utah Olympic Park and saw athletes performing flips on the water ramps.
“I saw it, and I was like, ‘I think I have to do that,’” she said.
With a year of high school left, she convinced her parents to let her move to Park City and begin training. But during her first jump on snow, she tore her ACL.
After recovering for a year back in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, Dossa wasn’t perturbed. She came back to Park City to try again.
“I was like, even if I don’t keep doing this, and I’m actually not that good at it, and maybe it’s just not for me, I just want to land at least one jump, just one, just to say I can do a flip on snow,” she said.
She landed her first flip on snow — then another and another.
Dossa made her first World Cup appearance last season at 21 years old. She represented the U.S. at the Intermountain Health Freestyle International at Deer Valley where she finished in an impressive eighth place.
She’s now working on her technique and hopes to make it into the 2026 Olympics.
