36
Boston, MA
Northeastern University
Classification: SB - LL2
Jaclyn "Jackie" Hamwey was an athlete long before she became a Paralympian. A graduate of Northeastern University in Boston, she participated in multiple sports including snowboarding and softball as an adult, driven by the same competitive instinct that would later carry her to the Paralympic Winter Games. That trajectory was interrupted in the summer of 2016, when Hamwey was 27 years old. Relaxing at Stage Harbor in Chatham, Massachusetts, her right leg was drawn into a motorboat propeller, causing injuries that required amputation below the knee.
At the time, Hamwey was a biotech scientist at Quanterix, a company working at the frontier of biomarker diagnostics. She applies the same precision and intellectual discipline to her sport that she had brought to her work, and the two identities coexist in her without contradiction. She is a proud Bostonian and a committed member of the adaptive athletics community.
After her injury, Hamwey discovered Para snowboarding and began training with Team Utah Snowboarding, one of the country's leading adaptive snowboard programs. She moved to Utah for full-time Paralympic training. She competes in the LL2 classification, which covers athletes with lower limb impairments, riding in both snowboard cross and banked slalom events. By the 2025–26 season, she was routinely placing in the top 10 if not top five in the world in both snowboard cross and banked slalom for her classification on the FIS Para snowboard circuit.
In February 2026, Hamwey was nominated by U.S. Ski & Snowboard for the Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, marking her Paralympic debut. She joined teammates including Brenna Huckaby and Kate Delson on the U.S. Para snowboard team.
At the Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, para snowboarding will be held at the Cortina Para Snowboard Park, set in the heart of the Dolomites. Cortina d’Ampezzo will also host para alpine skiing and wheelchair curling events and was home to ...
At just 19, Brenna Huckaby was no stranger to survival. She’d faced cancer, endured the loss of her leg and climbed her way into elite para snowboarding. But motherhood? That felt like a whole new mountain.“It kind of was like another hurdle at the tim...
For Para snowboarder Darian Haynes, everything is a waiting game.It’s not the same waiting game that able-bodied athletes are used to. Haynes doesn’t wait for scores to appear on an electronic screen for final times at the end of runs. Nor does she wai...
The first time 2018 Paralympic Snowboarding gold medalist Noah Elliott clipped into a snowboard was a “new awakening,” according to the 27-year-old. “It was like that this can be the new version of Noah,” he explained.But the road to get there was just...
U.S. women (and one mixed team) shined in 2023 with world titles, record-breaking performances and some notable firsts.
