Having originally chosen Colorado College for its Block Plan and proximity to the mountains, Kate Delson attended for a year before deciding to leave to pursue her athletic career as a parasnowboarder.
“I mostly picked CC because it sounded like I could be more flexible with the Block Plan, but it turned out to be the opposite and it was really hard for an athlete like me,” says Delson in an interview for this article.
Delson’s training requires her to be on-snow most of the year, often meaning missing class and going off-campus to train for days at a time. She recalls struggling with getting approval to combine her schedules as an on-snow athlete and a CC student.
“Obviously, they [CC] didn’t want me to take classes online and they didn’t support my leaves of absence, so I had to pay for blocks I wasn’t there for, which would have been way over the 32 that are required for graduation,” says Delson.
Despite the decision to leave after her freshman year, Delson has fond memories of her time at CC. Some of her regular activities included climbing at the Ritt Kellogg Climbing Gym, skateboarding at the Colorado Springs skateparks, and attending CC events like the Campus Sleepover or Late Night Breakfast at Rastall’s.
“I loved CC, it just wasn’t right for me,” said Delson.
Delson’s academic interests at CC included film and media studies as well as human biology and kinesiology, which she now hopes to pursue at a community college in Utah, where she spends most of her time training and living.
Since leaving CC, Delson has won a silver medal at the 2025 World Para Snowboard Championships and the overall crystal globe during the 2025-2026 FIS Para Snowboard World Cup. This February, she qualified for Team USA at the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milano/Cortina.
First, Delson won the silver medal in the snowboard cross event. That is one of the two para snowboarding events, which is a competition that involves four athletes starting at the same time and trying to get through a course filled with high banks, rollers and drops.
A week later, Delson won a gold medal in the banked slalom event, which is a single-person race full of berms and tight turns. This time, she got to share the podium with her teammate, Brenna Huckaby, who won the bronze medal in the same event.
Growing up, Delson’s family had a condo at Mammoth Mountain where they would spend every winter skiing and riding the slopes. At three years old, Delson started skiing through the local adaptive sports program, Access Mammoth.
Skiing was a challenge due to Delson’s congenital disability that affects the muscles in her right leg. Since skiing required two legs to work independently rather than together like on a snowboard, it was harder to master. That struggle, combined with Delson’s entire family snowboarding, prompted her to switch sports, which proved to be harder than expected.
“It was a lot of begging to start snowboarding. Then, it was classic for kids to start with skiing,” said Delson. “I work at an adaptive sports organization now and a lot of students there have cognitive disabilities. The concept of skiing is easier for them to grasp, so it is easier to teach them that, so that’s what they are taught.”
Delson thinks that a framework like that was the reason why she was put on skis first, even though snowboarding proved to be a much more comfortable snow sport for somebody with her type of disability.
“Snowboarding requires a completely different way of engaging your legs. That’s why you don’t really see many above-the-knee amputees skiing because snowboarding is generally easier for them,” said Delson.
A seemingly small shift in activities can prove life-changing, as Delson says she would not have stuck with snow sports at all if she had stayed on skis.
From there on, systematic barriers only kept coming.
Delson’s competitive journey began as the only athlete with a disability on the Mammoth snowboard team. At that year’s Junior Nationals, she placed third in slopestyle, a moment she still calls one of her proudest achievements. Competing against able-bodied athletes posed its own challenges, but Delson thrived due to her unwavering passion for the sport.
“The way I learned gave me a very authentic passion about snowboarding,” said Delson. “That passion still lives, and that’s why I’m still riding.”
Delson’s rise in para snowboarding reflects both her dedication and the growing recognition of the sport. Even though para snowboarding made its Paralympic debut in the 2014 Winter Paralympics, visibility and resources remain limited. Funding and coaching from the US national team are vital to para athletes, and the World Cup podium prize money is currently reserved for able-bodied competitors.
Delson also acknowledges the lack of popularity of para snowboarding and the challenges that it presents, especially for women. While men compete across several classifications, women’s events are often combined due to low participation.
“We have to find people who can snowboard, who are good, who want to get good, want to compete and have the money to compete,” says Delson.
Despite all of the challenges, this is a scenario beyond Delson’s dreams.
“I was a big dreamer growing up—I wanted to be a rock star,” says Delson. “I thought para snowboarders were the coolest people and I thought I would become the best filmmaker; I didn’t even dream of anything like this.”