Christopher Waddell
Park City, Utah
Track and Field

A skier since he was 3, Waddell was paralyzed below the waist in a 1988 skiing accident while he was a student at Middlebry College in Middlebury, VT. He started monoskiing, won two silver medals at the ’92 Paralympics and became the Babe Ruth of men’s mono-ski racing: 12 victories in Winter ’93, four Paralympic golds in ’94, two more at ’96 Worlds and eight more medals in ’96, ’98 and 2000. At the ’96 World Championships, Waddell - who had broken his nose and injured his shoulder, straining his rotator cuff, six weeks earlier - as six seconds out in the first run of GS. He attached a different ski to his mono-ski, won the second run by 10 seconds and captured the gold medal.

This summer he will be competing in Athens in the Paralympic Games for Track and Field. In the Sydney Paralympic Games he earned a medal in the 200-meter.