Park City skier named to Adaptive Sports Hall of Fame

Nancy Gustafson started skiing at age 2 and racing at age 6 at Bousquet Ski Area near her home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. She attended the ski racing academy at Green Mountain Valley School in Vermont for four years as a teenager.

She competed for the University of New Hampshire at the NCAA Division 1 Ski Championships her freshman and sophomore years. At the 1985 championships she hit a lift tower during practice, partially paralyzing her left arm and hand. She was 20 years old.

The following year, in 1986, Gustafson won four gold medals at the World Disabled Championships in Sweden, launching a distinguished career in adaptive ski racing. In all, she earned seven gold and three silver medals in alpine skiing at the Paralympic Winter Games from 1988 to 1994, including a gold-medal sweep in Lillehammer. She won nine world championships and took 25 national titles before retiring at age 32.

Hall of fame career

Those achievements landed the Park City resident a place in the National Adaptive Sports Hall of Fame.

“Growing up, my dreams and goals revolved around winning Olympic, World Cup and world ski championships. But after the accident that paralyzed my arm and hand, those dreams took a new shape. Instead I won Paralympic medals as well as Disabled National Championships and World Championships,” Gustafson said in a written statement.

“But I surely never thought those dreams would lead me to the Adaptive Sports Hall of Fame. To be inducted this year is truly unimaginable and a tremendous honor. It is the culmination of decades of hard work, sacrifices, disappointments and accomplishments. And I am grateful beyond words.”

Gustafson and Mary Ellen “Mare” Whitney, from Wynantskill, New York, were both recently inducted into the hall. Through Move United, it recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to summer and winter adaptive sports.

Gustafson graduated from Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in 1999. After a long career as a veterinary radiation oncologist, she joined the Huntsman Cancer Hospital at the University of Utah in 2019 to treat humans. She met her husband in Park City and they were married in Nepal at the Tengboche monastery on their trek to Mount Everest Base Camp.

Outside her professional endeavors, she is now a certified ski instructor and regularly participates in alpine and nordic skiing, cycling, hiking, rafting and pickleball.

Later this year, Gustafson will be inducted into the U.S. National Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame, which recognizes those who have shaped and elevated skiing and snowboarding in the United States.

Empowering athletes with disabilities

Whitney, an adaptive physical education teacher, began a skiing program for students with disabilities in 1985 after recognizing that those with disabilities were often excluded from extracurricular activities. What began as a small ski program grew into the nationally recognized nonprofit STRIDE, which has empowered athletes with disabilities through adaptive sport and recreation — offered at little or no cost to athletes and their families.

“Adaptive sport isn’t about limitations. It’s about possibility,” she said. “I’ve been blessed to spend my life helping people see what they can do, not what they can’t. STRIDE is proof of what happens when a community comes together with that belief.”

In 2005, she founded the Wounded Warfighters Snowfest, an annual event for veterans and families. In 2019, Whitney expanded STRIDE’s mission with the creation of the SHARE Center in West Sand Lake, New York, a community hub featuring an adaptive fitness gym, wellness spaces and headquarters.

Whitney retired as executive director of STRIDE in 2024 but continues to serve as a board member and volunteer director of its snow sports programs.