Alana Nichols

Alana Jane Nichols, born 21 March 1983, is an American Paralympic wheelchair basketball player and alpine skier. She was born in New Mexico, and a snowboarding accident in Colorado in 2000 left her paralyzed from the waist down. She took up wheelchair basketball at the University of New Mexico in 2002, and later studied at the University of Arizona and the University of Alabama. A five-time Paralympian (2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016) and six-time medalist with three gold, two silver and one bronze, she won basketball gold at Beijing in 2008, then turned to alpine skiing and took two golds, a silver and a bronze at the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver. She is the first American woman with gold medals in both the summer and winter Games, took downhill silver at Sochi in 2014, made her paracanoe debut at Rio in 2016, and commentated for NBC at the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics.