Training for the 2026 Snowboard Paralymic Games

My name is Taylor Layle and I am a 24 year old snowboarder with Adaptive Action Sports in Copper Mountain, CO. I began this journey over two years ago in 2021 after receiving two below-knee prosthetic legs in March of 2020. My first season with AAS was an amazing opportunity where I learned a lot and began the fundamentals of competition. Last season was a season of growth through many unforeseen hardships, however several amazing experiences have come out of them. My first 2 seasons I was unable to afford rent in the more expensive resort town near Copper Mountain, so one summer I sold my car to purchase and remodel a minivan to live out of. While this was a good way to stay in Colorado and worked well at the beginning, I had an exhaust malfunction resulting in carbon monoxide poisoning and a scary night in the hospital.

I soon recovered from this incident and went on to participate in The Hartford Ski Spectacular in December 2022. This was my second year at Ski Spec and my first race of the season. During the competition at my first Ski Spec in 2021, I was disqualified as I could not make the gates. This Ski Spec was very meaningful to me as I learned a lot during race camp throughout the week and was able to compete in this competition again, where I won a bronze medal in the team competition and a silver medal in the women’s overall category. This was the most meaningful race of the season to me personally because of the growth I saw from 2021 to 2022. I went from disqualifying to being on the podium, and that is a feeling of accomplishment I will never forget. I had a wonderful time learning from my peers and Paralympic athletes such as Keith Gabel. It was a uniquely fun, meaningful, and difficult week of hard work and fellowship that I was grateful to be apart of and excited to continue participating in.

Throughout the season I continued to build friendships and mentorships while competing in several open races around Colorado including the Bucket Banked Slalom and Slash and Burn. These races helped build my skills as the courses were designed for able-bodied racers, so I was definitely tested as a snowboarder on these courses, but still managed to pull out some podium medals in adaptive categories. I also competed on my first ever black diamond run at Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia. This was a mile and a half long giant slalom with 54 turns. I became the first ever adaptive snowboarder as well as the first female adaptive snowboarder to run the Cup Run Challenge and received a silver medal next to my male counterpart who was the first male adaptive snowboarder to race this course. My good friend Kinzie Dickman, who invited me to the race during Ski Spec, works to improve Snowshoe’s adaptive program and has done an outstanding job fighting for disability rights and building a program to help people with disabilities re-discover their athleticism. This was also an incredibly meaningful race for me as it is an honor to have been the first adaptive snowboarder to run this course, and I hope to see that kickstart more participation in adaptive snowboarding, both for this race and around the US. I definitely plan on returning to Snowshoe to help this program as best I can. I really believe in the people who work there and their mission to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.

While last season was an incredibly rewarding season, both physically and mentally, there were a lot of difficult situations that occurred beyond my control. I was having several issues with my prosthetic legs during the season which caused a lot of pain and hurdles to overcome, however I managed to make them work well enough to continue training. I also had several health issues that led to a few hospital stays including elevation sickness, migraines, and a long-term issue of iron deficiency anemia in which I had to undergo a few iron infusions to increase my dangerously low level of iron. My iron levels are much better now though, and I just have to keep an eye on it and go back in for infusions when necessary. A few months after the carbon monoxide incident, my van was broken into while I was visiting family for Christmas. Everything that made the van livable- my solar panels, batteries, electricity, heat, etc. was stolen and never recovered. Returning to Colorado homeless was a devastating situation I did not expect, however, my friends in Colorado took care of me and I was able to couch hop until finding someone who would take me in as a roommate for a couple of months. Despite all of these circumstances last year, I was able to continue training, traveling, and creating new friendships and a love of snowboarding and other athletic pursuits. A friend introduced me to jiu-jitsu which is now an off-season form of training I love! As an amputee, missing the lower half of my legs provides both disadvantages and advantages in jiu-jitsu which makes it a very fun and freeing sport to participate in! The community is also amazingly welcoming and inclusive, so it has become a special place to me and my friends.

Upon returning to my home in South Carolina for the summer, I was rear-ended at 55 mph while I was stopped at a red light, totaling my van, breaking my prosthetic legs, and resulting in a major concussion and injured wrist. This has made off-season training much more difficult, and I tried to continue training for as long as possible, but had to stop due to health issues and injuries. It also took over 6 months to replace only half of my prosthetic feet that were damaged in the accident. Luckily I am in good enough health and have enough functioning prosthetic legs to return to Colorado for this 2023/2024 snowboard season where I hope to join the international competition circuit this season. I am looking forward to my first international competition in Landgraaf at the end of November!

Competition is very expensive as we are supported by our non-profit training organization, Adaptive Action Sports, but have to raise the remaining funds on our owns for competitions, equipment, travel fees, and training expenses. Each season costs around $20,000 to fully participate in training and competition. Funds raised here will go towards those costs for this season.

I cannot describe the impact that this journey has made on my life and the impact it has made in the lives of people in the disabled community that I have gotten to witness over the past couple of years. If you would have asked me even 5 years ago where my life was going, I never would have guessed this. I am so glad and eternally grateful that it has gone this way though. I have fought with medical issues, public systems, and other people’s perceptions of disability my entire teenage and adult life, and now I feel that I am finally able to make an impact, both in my own life and in other people’s lives. I would love your help and support in continuing this journey in snowboarding and my mission to change the lives of disabled people all over the world. Thank you so much for your love and support!