Learning A New Arc

“There was pain in my left knee … I played it off.” Elliot says. It was not until a few weeks after the pain began Noah would come to find out something that would forever change his journey. No stranger to competitive environments and the thrill of adventure sports Noah grew up in a suburb of St. Louis, a skateboarder. At 15 local skate shops and companies were offering sponsorships and opening doors for Noah. Then, Noah began to notice a decline in his riding.

Noah was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, clinically Bone Cancer, and it was eating away at Noah’s knee. Noah quickly went in for surgery to implant an external chemo port line in his chest. After a year of chemotherapy, the doctors opted to give Noah a complete knee replacement, in hopes of eliminating pain and allowing Noah to keep his leg.

Noah’s body did not accept the replacement, and began to reject the metal that was involved in his limb salvage. At 17 he was given less then two weeks to make a decision – to keep the limb, or to have an above the knee amputation- he chose the later. It was at that moment Noah began training to get back to what he loved, skateboarding and action sports – with just a new word attached to the category of sports he loves, Adaptive.

Fast forward a few years, Noah is thriving in Park City, Utah. Just a year after his first season on the the National Ability Center snowboard team and Noah became a Paralympic Gold Medalist in snowboarding.

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