With Use of Only One Arm, a Snowboarder Speeds to Success

She learned to write with her left hand, play video games with her feet and how to make a ponytail with the help of a doorknob. She spent all of junior high and high school trying every type of sport and activity — track, art, choir, cheerleading — straining to redefine herself and to envision a future other than the one she had pictured as a professional motocross racer. Nothing made her heart sing.

It wasn’t until college at Dallas Baptist University that Clay got back on a motorcycle.

“I found myself constantly going back to the dirt track,” she said. “One of my friends said, ‘Why don’t we rig up a pit bike that you can ride with one hand?’ That bike didn’t stop for eight or nine hours. I went through three cans of gas. I still had that feeling on the track, this crazy sense of peace. I call it my throttle therapy. If I hadn’t gotten back on the bike, I wouldn’t have gotten into snowboarding.”

Word spread about the 5-foot-2, one-armed woman racing dirt bikes.

Adaptive Action Sports invited Clay to Colorado to try snowboarding. It was the first time she had been on a board since she was a small child.

“The day I met Kiana, having known her background and seeing videos riding her bike, I thought she had the exact right attitude to be a competitive snowboarder,” Gale, of Adaptive Action Sports, said. “As we’ve traveled down this road, she’s fallen more and more in love with the sport. She’s finding her place in the snowboard culture, finding her footing as an athlete and learning a lot about herself and what she’s capable of.”

Clay has been working with Burton’s designers on improving gear for those with physical disabilities.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/sports/olympics/kiana-clay-snowboarding-paralympics.html