Para snowboarder Brenna Huckaby: The fight continues, but I can't wait to see the payoff (2024)

Brenna Huckaby, 26, is a seven-time gold medalist in para snowboarding and two-time Paralympian. She lost her right leg to a rare form of bone cancer in 2010 at age 14. After spending her youth as a gymnast, Huckaby took up snowboarding because it reminded her of being on the balance beam. One year later, she won her first world championship.

Huckaby is designated as an LL1 athlete, which includes above-the-knee amputees. She has spent over a year fighting to participate in the lesser-impaired LL2 class that includes below-the-knee amputees. It's a practice known as "competing up," where an athlete joins a classification that is considered more difficult. It's permitted in other sports, including events at the summer Paralympic Games, and other snowboarding events. Huckaby has successfully competed up at other events in her career.

In her own words, Huckaby recounts the incredibly close race for gold in Beijing and the long battle for the right to compete in the Games. As she just learned after returning to the U.S., it is a battle that is not over yet.

THE MOMENT I realized the gold medal was within my reach was when I looked up at the board after my first run on banked slalom and saw I was only 0.08 seconds away from first place. Because I was competing in a higher class, the women are faster, they're stronger, they're more able. But I've never put limits on myself, regardless of my competition.

I was coming off some rough days of competition in the snowboardcross event. In addition to crashing in a practice run, I fell behind early in the course in the semifinals -- I was initially so behind the field that the camera crew wasn't even filming me when I was able to make up the time and finish in second, which put me into the finals. Then, in the finals, there was a collision with another rider. Despite the pain, I was able to stay on the course, get up and push on. I recovered enough to take home bronze, and I am really proud of that despite also being disappointed I was unable to go for first or second.

I'm human, so doubt or negativity pops up for me from time to time, but I've worked really hard in therapy over the last four years to figure out the root of those doubts. When they sneak in, and I'm telling myself I'm not good enough or I'm unworthy, I have to remember that's a lie. After the snowboardcross final and before banked slalom, I had a day to mentally reset and rest my body. I journaled my experience, which helped process what I was going through. I told myself I know what to do. I know how to snowboard. I had to trust my body and my board and not focus on what could go wrong, but what's gone right so far.

So in that final run for banked slalom, I decided to just let my snowboard go -- full send. In the moment I thought, "If I blow out of this course, I don't care." The whole run was just on the edge of feeling out of control. It was so fun, but it didn't feel like my best because I'd spent most of it saving myself from a crash.

I crossed the finish line and saw my name up there, but the results didn't process for me. I asked if I was even on the podium, and my fellow Team USA competitor said, "Dude, you're winning." There was one athlete left to go after my final run, but I held on to the top spot. The second- and third-place finishers were only fractions of a second behind my time.

As I stood on the stage and heard the U.S. national anthem play and felt the weight of the medal around my neck, I couldn't stop thinking, "We did it." It really wasn't just my win, but the whole snowboarding community. Everyone who supported me in my fight to even be on the snow at these Paralympic Games. The journey to that moment was long, and the burden was heavy. But so many people carried a little piece of that burden alongside me to help ease its weight.

For over a year, I fought to compete after the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) ruled me ineligible. They decided that my class (LL1) did not meet their viability standards and canceled our class' medal events. I requested to compete with either the female LL2 class or the LL1 men, even though either class would be more difficult for me. Their decision to deny both options came as a shock to me. Ultimately, I was forced to challenge the IPC's decision in German court. (IPC headquarters are in Bonn, Germany.)

In late January, the court ruled the IPC's decision to exclude me from the Games based on my impairment was unlawful, and I was to be allowed to compete in Beijing. I thought that was the end of the fight. I was proud of what we had accomplished, and I went on to earn the bronze and gold medals, which proved my disability shouldn't hinder me from competing up. But I was wrong.

I left Beijing so excited to see my husband and two daughters, who couldn't be with me because of COVID restrictions. The experience of the Games was gratifying and triumphant, but there was also a specter of loneliness in not being able to hug my family. When I landed in the U.S., all I wanted to do was celebrate with them. I was finally able to check my email, and I saw a message from my attorney in Germany. He was notifying me that the IPC is taking further legal action, seeking to invalidate my participation in Beijing, which would strip me of my medals.

I would love to say I was shocked, but based on the IPC's statement after I won the case in German court, I wasn't surprised. The classifications based on impairment exist to protect athletes and create an equal playing field. But we were not asking for protection, we were asking to compete, even at a disadvantage. It's difficult to find people with significant disabilities to do the sports that we are doing, so it's as though we are being punished for being more disabled.

The fight for inclusion continues, as this shows how much more change needs to happen. We deserve the opportunity to compete and the framework to move to a more difficult classification that exists in other sports and other para snowboard events.

This has been a difficult fight, but there is nothing I would change. Everything in my life has prepared me for this moment. I've gone through a lot of personal growth, learning how to use my voice and speak out. I was always scared to stand out or go against the grain, and I worked on that for four years since competing in the Pyeongchang Games, where I won two gold medals. It couldn't have come at a better time, because I feel so prepared to say what I need to say and make the changes that I need to make.

I always tell myself I've already won, however this goes. I have a great family, a support system, I'm taken care of in so many ways. So however things play out, I remind myself constantly that I've already won.

I'm hopeful for the chance to be an athlete at the top level at the next games in Italy. No legal battles, no barriers to competition. It would have been easy this time to not pursue participation in Beijing and to say, "Oh well, I'll try again at the next Games." But I didn't, because I knew this fight was bigger than myself. I knew if I was successful, it would help encourage other people with disabilities to use their voices and speak out. I'm really proud of this fight for myself, for the future, for inclusion, for the sport, for people with disabilities. It was worth every second, and I wouldn't change a thing. The fight continues, but I can't wait to see the payoff.