{"id":41973,"date":"2022-02-26T01:19:24","date_gmt":"2022-02-26T08:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/brittani-coury-eyeing-podium-at-paralympics\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:04:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:04:24","slug":"brittani-coury-eyeing-podium-at-paralympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/brittani-coury-eyeing-podium-at-paralympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Brittani Coury eyeing podium at Paralympics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Brittani
Brittani Coury of Durango will represent Team USA again at the Paralympic Games in Beijing this winter. She'll race in boarder cross and banked slalom. Courtesy Team Citi<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Brittani Coury of Durango will compete a second time in the Winter Paralympics, which begin next week in Beijing. In 2018, Coury won a silver medal in the banked slalom competition. She\u2019s looking for more success this year.<\/p>\n

Coury will again compete in the banked slalom and snowboard cross.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been training hard,\u201d Coury said. \u201cI\u2019m not going there not to get on the medal stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coury, who is a nurse, has trained full-time for the Paralympics at the Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it,\u201d Couri said. \u201cWe train with the able-bodied team; we push them, and they push us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Brittani
Brittani Coury catches some air on her snowboard. Coury will head to Beijing to compete in boarder cross and banked slalom at the 2022 Winter Paralympics. (Courtesy Team Citi)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

As one of Team Citi\u2019s winter Para athletes, she has been able to focus all of her time on training, and not work, recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thankful to partners like Citi Bank for taking a huge weight off of my shoulders,\u201d Coury said. \u201cI\u2019m thankful I get to focus on my sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also praised Citi\u2019s #StareAtGreatness campaign, which positively portrays people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cCiti\u2019s campaign is breaking down stigmas and showcasing what (people with disabilities) are capable of doing,\u201d Coury said. \u201cIt\u2019s OK, you can stare. It\u2019s cool my sponsors and so many others are stepping in and helping me change perceptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coury participates in the lower-limb 2 classification, which is designated for athletes with an impairment in one or two legs. A typical example would be an amputation below the knee, which is what happened to Coury. Coury, originally from Aztec, suffered a broken ankle after a snowboarding crash when she was 17. After enduring nine surgeries and several years of pain, Coury had her right leg amputated below her knee in 2011. Watching the Sochi Games inspired her, and she began snowboarding competitively in 2016.<\/p>\n

Riding with her niece and nephew also motivates her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want them to not like winter,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted them to have that same joy (I found) and I\u2019m so proud they\u2019ve been part of this journey. When I\u2019m snowboarding, you can\u2019t tell I\u2019m missing a foot, but they think it\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also wants to motivate others. \u201cHow cool of a legacy would it be to leave behind than to make someone want to give snowboarding a try?\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, Coury crashed out of competition in the boarder cross qualifications, but the event might be her favorite.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like boarder cross; it\u2019s super fun,\u201d she said, adding that it\u2019s also a fan favorite because it\u2019s a pretty easy sport to understand: Four boarders race together, and the first person to finish wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has different strengths and weaknesses, but it highlights adaptability as a snowboarder,\u201d she said,<\/p>\n

In banked slalom, on the other hand, competitors race one at a time against the clock for the fastest time.<\/p>\n

The 2022 Winter Paralympics are March 4-13.<\/p>\n

Snowboard cross begins March 5 with the finals on March 6. Banked slalom is held March 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, there\u2019s a sense of pride being able to narrate what a disability is,\u201d Coury said. \u201cI\u2019m the only one who sets limitations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

compete in snowboard cross and banked slalom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,4374],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-paralympic-games"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85169,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41973\/revisions\/85169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41973"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}