Disability Pride Month: Para Alpine Skiing's 45-Year-Old Rookie, Zach Williams

Disability Pride Month is a time to recognize the history, achievements and experiences of people living with disabilities. It reminds us that disability is a natural part of human diversity, not a deficit or a condition that needs a fix.

Team USA’s Paralympic athletes represent this sentiment on a global stage. And on the heels of the immense broadcasting success of the Paralympic Games Paris 2024, our winter Paralympic athletes — who are heading into selection season for the Paralympic Winter Games Milan Cortina 2026 — are hoping to see the same results.

One such athlete is the newest member of the U.S. Para Alpine National Team, Zach Williams. Although the Madera, California, native and 2024 super-G national champion is a rookie on paper, he possesses the knowledge of a veteran.

During an interview that was expected to last around 30 minutes, Williams spoke for nearly an hour, describing the details of his athlete journey, showcasing his vast knowledge of the world of prosthetics and illustrating the importance of Disability Pride Month.

“I was born without my tibia bones and had amputations when I was about 18 months old,” Williams, who turns 46 years old on Saturday, began. “I’ve been wearing prosthetic legs since I was two, and that’s how I’ve just walked.”

However, that didn’t stop Williams from enjoying sports, including the biggest one for California’s beachgoers, surfing.

“I lived in LA for 15 years and I surfed the whole time I was there,” he smiled. “I fell in love with surfing. I’d go before work and after work. I didn’t go home for the holidays. I’d go to Mexico to surf.”

If it were up to Williams, he would have surfed his entire life. But, as fate would have it, “work and a woman,” he said coyly, took him to Northern Arizona.

“I’d been (in Arizona) for a year or two and I saw a flyer for free adaptive ski lessons,” Williams explained. “I thought, ‘well, there’s no waves at 7,000 feet or Flagstaff.’ So, I signed up and really fell in love with it.”

Although Williams’ first passion was surfing, he explained in detail the difficulty of ducking under waves with his board.

“You kind of put your knees on the tail to make that turn, and the board kind of floats up,” Williams said. “But with the way my legs and body are, I can’t really do that. The wave will catch my backside and drag me back a bit.”

As soon as Williams used a mono-ski, which consists of a bucket-style seat mounted on a single, wide ski, he noticed his freedom of movement exponentially increased.

“I’ve surfed in waves up to six to eight feet,” he said. “But, I can do double black diamonds. I’m even more unlimited on a sit ski.”

Williams recalled being 39 years old when he approached one of the instructors asking if making a Paralympic team was a possibility. He got the answer he was looking for.

“He said it’s going to take a lot of hard work, but it’s not impossible,” Williams said.

The fire inside him ignited.

An avalanche of specifics flowed out of Williams, detailing his steps towards making the team. His official athlete journey began around 2020, using the short spring skiing season to feel that freedom of movement. The next step was participating in the Hartford Ski Spectacular, an annual winter adaptive sports festival held in Breckenridge, Colorado. While there, he learned how to set up slalom gates for competitions. He took that knowledge back to Flagstaff to train on his own alongside a group of kids.

“That was the only group that was setting gates and running,” Williams recalled.

A work relocation to Northern California allowed Williams to gain easier access to Palisades Tahoe, where he was finally able to train with the masters and adult expert racers. However, it still wasn’t enough.

“I spent a couple of seasons working Monday through Friday, did laundry on Saturday, and drove up to Tahoe to ski on Sunday,” Williams said. “I was only training one day a week with gates and was thinking that it wasn’t going to get me to the Paralympics.”

Growing up with a disability, Williams was drawn to the idea of working in the prosthetics field. In between his beloved surf sessions, he made room for studying and earned a Master’s degree in Health Sciences, Prosthetics and Orthotics. Up to this point in his journey, he was letting his work dictate his path. While he did enjoy the prosthetics portion of the job, the minutiae that came with working in the healthcare business started to wear on him.

“I wasn’t living the dream and wanted to ski anyway,” he said. 

Pair that feeling with the workforce reduction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Williams made the ultimate decision to dedicate his life to skiing.

“I did some math, made some choices, and took a leap,” he said. “I sold my home in Northern California and moved to Utah. I used that money to fund my life as an athlete so I could train full-time.”

Williams’ math allowed him to train for two years before ultimately making the 2024-25 U.S. Para Alpine Skiing National Team.

Joining the team on year three of a quad – the four-year cycle between the Olympic/Paralympic Winter Games – can have its challenges, especially for a Paralympic athlete. For instance, Williams spent most of the 2024-25 Para alpine season dialing in the specifications of his racing setup. This is something most Paralympic athletes do during the first year of a quad, not midway through the penultimate season before qualification. Podium finishes were not necessarily the goal this season. Instead, the focus was on trial and error. Ultimately, the rookie finished 10th in the overall super-G standings and 11th in giant slalom.

“We made a few changes to help me ski better, and I just skied worse,” Williams said. “Similar to ‘booting out’ in stand-up ski racing, my frame would hit the snow and bounce my ski off the snow. Then, I would crash or slide out. So, I chose to switch equipment.”

Williams likened the fine-tuning of his equipment to what Formula One drivers do. The technical sport became his favorite to watch after learning some of its intricacies via Netflix’s successful docuseries, Drive to Survive.

“It’s not just you,” he explained during his comparison. “It’s this machine…skis and boots are equipment as well. But your knees and legs can move and react at the speed of thought, or faster if you’re going downhill racing. Whereas, we have this frame geometry that moves in the same way every time.

“You have this shock that can accommodate a range of responses, but it’s still limited. You have a spring rate, and you have a couple of different valves that you can open and close. But, the setting that may work well in this one scenario may not be ideal for another.”

He then broke down the manual transfer of movement that every Paralympic skier must control. It is a feat unique to the Paralympic world given the athlete has to maintain control of a non-human appendage.

“You’re in the seat, and you’re making movements,” he began. “You’re trying to transfer that movement from the seat, through the frame, to the ski onto the snow, and feeling the feedback back up that chain as well.”

Because of this, Paralympic skiers oftentimes spend as much time in a workshop as they do on the slopes. Williams’ background in prosthetics research led him to design custom bucket seats for himself and other skiers. The custom seats are a major difference from the stock seats he originally used in Flagstaff.

“The stock seats come with a hip width measurement,” he explained. “But a lot of those (seats) are also designed with the spinal cord injury population in mind. They’re geared towards people who don’t have glute muscles, who have atrophy.

“As I’ve been walking my whole life, there's some more junk in my trunk,” Williams laughed.

His seat was one of the main reasons for his mid-season tinkering. He had spent so much time in the gym with trainers that his custom seat became uncomfortable. He felt as if he was “on top of the equipment, not in it.” And with a seat change, came a new shock setup, a new frame geometry and different angles to discern.

Williams’ prosthetics education came in the traditional form, hand shaping plaster models and casts. He attempted to 3D print new bucket seats, using the new technology of layering filaments, but experienced limited success. The 3D printed seats fractured under stress when tightening the seat securely to the ski underneath. So, he reverted to the old model of using a cast and hand-shaping plaster. He stated he prefers a seat that looks “organic,” and “wraps onto (his) thigh a little bit.” 

Through the process, Williams has seen nothing but support not only from his Team USA teammates, but also his competitors from other countries. He stated that he’s been “impressed” with the camaraderie around the World Cup circuit this season before qualification starts.

“The guys that are the top two or three guys in the world have been super friendly,” Williams said, adding that he frequently asks for tips or explanations as to why they position their seats in a certain manner.

“I haven’t seen anybody saying, ‘oh, don’t tell him the secrets.’ Maybe if I start knocking on the door of the podium, that changes,” Williams laughed.

And despite the ultra-competitive nature of Team USA’s selection process, Williams explained that everyone on the team has been giving him tips as well. The U.S. men’s Para alpine skiing team has a combined 60+ years of experience. Additionally, Laurie Stephens adds another 21 years on the women’s side alone. He’s also framed the competition in another way – a battle against himself.

“There is that element where we’re teammates on Team USA, but we’re also competing against each other,” Williams said. “I find it more helpful to think that I’m competing against the clock.

“I’m competing against myself. No one is out there trying to cover my eyes while I’m making a turn, or throw a banana peel on the course. It’s me pushing out of that start gate and seeing how fast I can get down the hill.”

Having grown up wearing prosthetics (Williams obtained his first set in 1980), he noted some of the advancements he’s seen firsthand.

“The flexible plastic (I place my leg inside) used to be a piece of foam,” Williams illustrated, showing his prosthesis to the camera. “And the composite layout has obviously advanced over the last 45 years…the feet have gotten better, and the knees have gotten significantly better.”

Williams began describing how his prosthetic knee works in detail:

“It’s got a five-sensor array that feeds into a microprocessor unit that controls the needle valve on the hydraulic resistance. That runs at like 50 or 60 hertz, so 50-60 times a second, it’s reading five sensors, compiling all that information, and making a choice about how much resistance (to give). For example, if I’m going to fall, it’s going to ramp that resistance up enough that I can land on a bent knee. It’s not going to just be rigid and stop me.”

Williams likened the action to a modern-day trunk of a car that has hydraulic cylinders. The trunk cannot be forcefully pushed closed because of that resistance.

“Whereas the knees I grew up with were not that responsive,” he said. “They were kind of stable to a point. Then they would be released and they would swing. If you had a stumble and you landed on a bent knee, it was just going to collapse on you.”

Despite that discussion, Williams ended the topic pragmatically.

“At the same time, even my $35,000 knee is only going to do a fraction of what your knee is capable of,” he said.

Despite the price tag and the technology, there will always be limitations when it comes to prosthetics. However, that doesn’t mean it needs to be fixed. It just needs to be recognized and understood better.

“I can walk, and I get around just fine,” Williams stated. “But the scope, the broad range, of all the things that your knee can do in a world that was designed for anatomical knees compared to what a device, even a very advanced one, can do, is different. It will have limitations.”

At this stage in life, passersby stop Williams so many times it seems normal to him. He admitted his friends notice it more than he does. 

“I see what’s going on in people’s heads,” he explained. “I see the gears turning…I think the big question people ask is ‘What would I do if that were me?’

And a lot of times even their responses are like ‘oh, if I were in your situation, I don’t think I would be able to do the things you’re doing.”

At that moment, he described the impact of Disability Pride Month, elaborating on the potential it could have to rewire a person’s line of thinking.

“When you have a month that celebrates people with disabilities and gives a fuller picture of what it looks like,” he began. “I think people say, ‘Oh, well, if that did happen to me, I could be a Paralympian. I could climb a mountain. I could run a race, swim a mile, or whatever the thing is.”

Williams then reflected on his journey with skiing and attempting to make a Paralympic team at the age of 45.

“I’m having a life that I would never have if I were able-bodied,” he said with a smile. “How many able-bodied Olympians could say, ‘oh, I’m 39. I just tried a new sport. Let me see if I can go to the Olympics and compete at this level?’

“It has not been an easy process for me, and I’ve had to make big sacrifices. I’ve had to have a lot of discipline, and a lot of hard work. But, this experience and life I’m having are much more unique than someone who was able-bodied and skied for the first time at 39. They wouldn’t be on this path.

So, I think highlighting people with disabilities this month shows that by no means is this a death sentence, and it might even open up more opportunities."

Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of people not knowing about the opportunities available. That’s where the increase in Paralympic Games broadcasts can play a pivotal role.

“The Paris coverage was amazing,” Williams exclaimed. “It is definitely the gold standard so far, where I could watch anything I wanted. It was all on replay, so I didn’t have to get up at 2 am to see the person or sport I wanted to see.”

Coverage will play a big part in the advancement moving forward. The more eyes that get on athletes like Williams, the more opportunities for sponsors and funding will exist.

“They’re not putting disabled athletes on a Wheaties box all the time, right?” Williams asked hypothetically. “...We don’t yet have the visibility to then entice the sponsors so that we can get the funding to continue pursuing this life of elite athletics.”

That’s where Team USA can also lend a hand.

Similar to a few of Team USA’s National Governing Body accounts, using a single platform both to promote Olympic and Paralympic sport in unison can give more exposure to Paralympic athletes. For example, USA Hockey’s social media account also publishes posts about the U.S. Para Ice Hockey team, who is the recent gold-medal winners from the 2025 World Para Ice Hockey Championships.

“If I can go to a sponsor and say, ‘look at this post, there’s an investment here,’ it’s huge,” Williams said. “I think a lot of times our stories are more interesting.”

In a way, Williams is correct. Although he admitted that athlete stories are what makes both the Olympics and Paralympics great (he specifically mentioned fellow skier Lindsey Vonn’s incredible comeback), the Paralympic sports world is teeming with stories that deserve the attention that Olympic stories receive.

“Pick a random Team USA athlete, and there’s something pretty impressive about that story,” Williams added. “The hurdles that have been overcome and the grit. All of those things that make that story arc are pretty interesting.”

So, Team USA fans, here’s the newest athlete story to follow – A 45, soon to be 46, year-old rookie, who just started skiing at 39 after a career in prosthetics and orthotics, is battling for a Milan Cortina 2026 roster spot for Para alpine skiing.

Not to mention, he also has a pretty cool mustache.

Brendan Rourke is a digital media journalist working for Team USA and the USOPC. Previously, he spent three years writing for the NBA’s Indiana Pacers, holds an undergraduate degree from UCF, and a graduate degree from IUPUI’s Sports Capital Journalism Program.