Ask Spencer Wood how he became Vermont’s sole 2026 Paralympian and he can retrace all 29 years of his journey from a traumatic brain injury in the womb to athletic triumph on the world stage. Or you can just jump to his new 15-second video that has nearly 1 million views.
“Before he was born, Spencer suffered a paralyzing stroke,” an announcer says in the spot for UF Health, a national medical center network for Team USA. “Life gave him a mountain to climb. Good thing he packed his skis.”
Wood has tapped that experience and equipment to compete in this month’s Paralympics, taking place in the same Italian venues where fellow Vermont-trained skiers Ryan Cochran-Siegle, Jessie Diggins, Mac Forehand, Paula Moltzan, Ben Ogden and Mikaela Shiffrin won Olympic medals in February.
“What makes Paralympians just like Olympians is we’re not letting anything limit us,” the Pittsfield athlete told VTDigger. “Every single ounce of sweat that I put into the sport is the culmination of what I’ve learned and what I’m ready to show for it. We all just want to win.”
Sharing the same birthday as his famed direct ancestor Benjamin Franklin, Wood grew up with impaired muscles and movement from cerebral palsy and paralysis in the right side of his body. As other children ran around in sneakers, he lumbered about in a brace that looked like a ski boot.
“I felt so different,” he says in another UF Health video.
Then Wood’s parents took him to their ski-instructing jobs at the Killington resort, where everyone had similar footwear. Taking to the slopes, he was racing by age 5 and later enrolling at the Killington Mountain School snow-sports academy and University of Colorado Boulder.
Wood competed in what he calls “able-bodied” events until high school.
“But as I got older,” he said in an interview, “the gaps between me and my peers began to grow more and more.”
Enter parasports (as in parallel and parity), which divides Alpine skiing into categories for athletes who can stand (using one ski or, as Wood does, two), sit (on a sit-ski) or are vision impaired (and are teamed with a guide speaking through a headset).
Wood soon earned a spot on the U.S. Para Alpine Ski and Snowboard Team, the World Cup racing circuit and the 2018 Winter Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the 2022 games in Beijing, China, and this month’s gathering in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
“It’s like a breath of fresh air,” Wood said of parasports. “It has allowed me an absolute opportunity to live my best life and hold nothing back. We get to go to the coolest venues in the world, places that people dream of.”
Such ups can have their downs. Wood was training at South America’s largest ski resort in Valle Nevado, Chile, in 2023 when he slipped while skiing the Andes Mountains at 70 miles per hour.
“I did two somersaults in the air and cartwheeled three or four times into the snow. I wish we got video.”
Instead, Wood got transported to UF Health in Florida, where testing ultimately led to a clean bill of health — and his appearance in the national medical center network’s current social media campaign.
The Vermonter competed this past week in all the standing Alpine Paralympic events, including downhill and super-G, which focus on speed, and slalom and giant slalom, which feature turns.
“It’s the best time of my life. I’ve grown so much as a person. We may be competitors for two minutes a day, but we all have to get along because the Paralympic community is so small.”
Wood once considered the word “stroke” to be something that hit him. Now on the snowy slopes, he has taken hold of it to make his own mark.
“You have this white canvas that you can paint a stroke wherever you want,” he told VTDigger in 2022. “It’s all you, your own power, you pull all those forces and all that energy out of the skiing. I’ve never done another activity that, with each stroke you make, your grin gets bigger and bigger and bigger.”
Wood traveled to Italy this month with assistant coach Sawyer Mattsson of Bridgewater, fiancée Rachel Frisch, father Randy Wood and thoughts of his mother, Barb Wood, who died of cancer in 2023.
“She’s with me in spirit,” he said. “This is for her.”
After globetrotting for a decade, Wood will return home with a new goal: planting roots.
“I asked a coach, ‘When did you know it was time to retire?’ and he said, ‘When you feel content.’ And that’s how I feel.”
And so Wood is set to marry, aim to add to his family of two dogs and three cats, and volunteer with Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports, which educates and equips people with disabilities.
“Snow is an equalizer,” he concluded. “It allows any person just to be one with nature and be at peace with themselves and what they bring to the table. Every time I’m home from a trip, I always turn right around and go skiing. My mentality is very much to feel grateful for everything, keep your eyes wide open and appreciate the ride.”
