Morris County School of Technology (Denville, N.J) ‘14 Dartmouth College '19, Anthropology
classification: B3, Visually Impaired
Personal
Mannella may be young, but she has years of experience under her belt. Mannella was born with achromatopsia, a congenital condition that seriously limits her visual acuity to three feet and causes extreme sensitivity to light. But being partially sighted never held Mannella back. When she was only four years old, she was skiing down the slopes holding onto a bamboo pole between two sighted skiers. By the time Mannella was in fifth grade, she started racing and joined the Adaptive Sports Foundation Race Team at Windham Mountain Ski Resort in New York shortly after. Mannella started skiing with the Paralympics in mind after meeting members of the U.S. Paralympics Alpine Skiing team at the Hartford Ski Spectacular in 2008. Only three years later, Mannella was named to the development roster for Team USA. As someone who is constantly balancing the demands of college and ski racing, it was fitting that Mannella learned of her acceptance to Dartmouth while waiting to receive her award at the Copper Mountain NorAm Cup in December of 2013. Unique to her training, Mannella cross-trains in equestrian while in the off-season...Daughter of Arron Manella and Susan Arnold...Has two siblings, Matthew and Rachel...Horseback riding also serves as her hobby.
