Anna Beninati: My Road To Training at The Olympic Training Center

At some point in your life, there will be a moment that you look back on and say, “That was the worst mistake I ever made.” For most people, it will be something like: “I wish I’d studied abroad in college,” or “She was the one who got away.” For me, it’s the time I accidentally ran myself over with a fully-loaded freight train. My name is Anna Beninati, I’ve been an instructor with Wasatch Adaptive Sports for six years, and I am a bilateral, above-knee amputee.

I began skiing with WAS two months after the loss of my legs. My first lesson was in a bi-unique, a seated skiing device with two skis underneath. And when I took that first run down Chickadee, something fundamental in me changed. No longer did I feel defined by my weak, broken body. No longer did I feel “confined” to my wheelchair. I was strong. I was beautiful.

There was power in me again. Twice a week, my mom drove me up to Snowbird to take lessons from Dave Schoeneck (my Uncle Dave) and Peter Mandler. I no longer needed to be tethered to an instructor. I moved up into a mono-ski, with only one ski beneath it. I became more and more independent. And after a few months, Dave and Peter came to me with a suggestion that would change my life: Why not come work for us, and try for the Paralympics?

From that point on, skiing became my whole life. I moved to Park City and joined an adaptive race team. In 2015, I won my first National title. A year later, I was a World Cup Medalist. And the following season, I caught my big break: I was named to the U.S. Paralympic National Ski Team, just in time for the 2018 Paralympic World Games in Pyeong Chang, South Korea.

But then, disaster struck. A month before the Games, I was informed that I would not be going. We had slots for six women, and I was number seven. I was gutted. It was the lowest point I’d reached since the loss of my legs. And as I watched my teammates ski to victory on TV, I could hear the words of Langston Hughes playing over and over again in my head: What happens to a dream deferred?

Then, a few weeks after the Paralympics, I got an email that would change everything. The U.S. Paralympic Committee offered me residence at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, the crucible in which such athletes as Michael Phelps, Jessica Long, and Apolo Ohno have been forged. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity.

The OTC is a lot like a college campus. I wake up, get breakfast in the dining hall, and then it’s off to the gym for a few hours to run through the programs that my strength and conditioning coach has written. After lunch, I can get my back treated at sports medicine, or use the recovery center sauna. I see sports psychologists who help hone my mental performance and even get psycho-physiology sessions where I can work on using mental strategies to manage my heart rate and breathing on race day.

I’ve befriended athletes, both Olympic and Paralympic, from a wide array of sports. (Olympic Figure Skaters are very aloof. But the Para Basketball team is a party on wheels!) And remember to bring your athlete ID card with you everywhere. There aren’t many doors at the OTC that will open without it, so don’t lose it!

It can get strange, at times, because my home is an active tourist attraction. You’ll be sweating on the gym floor, zoned out to music, and when you look up? Bam. 30 tourists taking pictures. Laying, half-naked on the table at sports med, grimacing in pain while you get cupped? You better believe there’s gonna be tourists.

But one of the most empowering things about the OTC is that the Olympics and Paralympics are presented as completely equal. Most people don’t know this, but the “para” in Paralympics comes from the Greek for “parallel to.” And so, for every set of rings you see on the wall, there’s a set of agitos right beside them.

Sometimes I still dream of train wheels or the bell at a railroad crossing. My phantom feet serve as a constant reminder of the poor choices I made. September 5th will mark the seven-year anniversary of my accident, and as it draws closer, I’m awestruck at the changes that have occurred since then. I find myself grateful for the mistake I made that day. Because I was never supposed to be a skier. I was never supposed to be an athlete. But thanks to Wasatch Adaptive sports, I’m here alongside the best of them.