Brittani Coury of Durango will compete a second time in the Winter Paralympics, which begin next week in Beijing. In 2018, Coury won a silver medal in the banked slalom competition. She’s looking for more success this year.
Coury will again compete in the banked slalom and snowboard cross.
“I’ve been training hard,” Coury said. “I’m not going there not to get on the medal stand.”
Coury, who is a nurse, has trained full-time for the Paralympics at the Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah.
“I love it,” Couri said. “We train with the able-bodied team; we push them, and they push us.”
As one of Team Citi’s winter Para athletes, she has been able to focus all of her time on training, and not work, recently.
“I’m thankful to partners like Citi Bank for taking a huge weight off of my shoulders,” Coury said. “I’m thankful I get to focus on my sport.”
She also praised Citi’s #StareAtGreatness campaign, which positively portrays people with disabilities.
“Citi’s campaign is breaking down stigmas and showcasing what (people with disabilities) are capable of doing,” Coury said. “It’s OK, you can stare. It’s cool my sponsors and so many others are stepping in and helping me change perceptions.”
Coury participates in the lower-limb 2 classification, which is designated for athletes with an impairment in one or two legs. A typical example would be an amputation below the knee, which is what happened to Coury. Coury, originally from Aztec, suffered a broken ankle after a snowboarding crash when she was 17. After enduring nine surgeries and several years of pain, Coury had her right leg amputated below her knee in 2011. Watching the Sochi Games inspired her, and she began snowboarding competitively in 2016.
Riding with her niece and nephew also motivates her.
“I didn’t want them to not like winter,” she said. “I wanted them to have that same joy (I found) and I’m so proud they’ve been part of this journey. When I’m snowboarding, you can’t tell I’m missing a foot, but they think it’s incredible.”
She also wants to motivate others. “How cool of a legacy would it be to leave behind than to make someone want to give snowboarding a try?”
In 2018, Coury crashed out of competition in the boarder cross qualifications, but the event might be her favorite.
“I really like boarder cross; it’s super fun,” she said, adding that it’s also a fan favorite because it’s a pretty easy sport to understand: Four boarders race together, and the first person to finish wins.
“Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses, but it highlights adaptability as a snowboarder,” she said,
In banked slalom, on the other hand, competitors race one at a time against the clock for the fastest time.
The 2022 Winter Paralympics are March 4-13.
Snowboard cross begins March 5 with the finals on March 6. Banked slalom is held March 11.
“For me, there’s a sense of pride being able to narrate what a disability is,” Coury said. “I’m the only one who sets limitations.”
