Creative writing major headed to Italy to compete in 2026 Winter Paralympics
OGDEN, Utah — Ever since his first season working at Snowbasin Resort in Weber County, Noah Bury knew he wanted to take his skiing skills to the highest level.
On March 6, Bury will be one of the athletes representing Team USA in the 2026 Milano Cortina Paralympic Winter Games. Bury, a creative writing major at Weber State University, is ranked 32nd in the world for men’s para alpine slalom skiing. 
“When I got the call that I was going to be on Team USA, it was like a very deep exhale,” he said. “It was like finally getting that job offer you’ve been waiting years and years for.”
He’s not the first Wildcat to compete in the Paralympics. Weber State track and field alum David Blair won gold in discus at the 2016 Rio Olympics and took bronze during the 2024 London games.
Bury, 23, was born with a rare birth defect called tibial hemimelia, which causes the tibia to be shorter than normal or missing altogether. At eight months old, his right leg was amputated below the knee. He was an active athlete from the beginning, participating in a wide range of sports throughout his childhood.
“It was wired into me that I’m not different than anybody else, so I did all the normal sports: baseball, basketball, tennis, all that good stuff,” he said. “Being disabled requires a lot of ingenuity. You can’t do things the same way everyone else can, so it’s finding avenues and ways to do it differently.”
Though he learned to ski at 5 years old, it didn’t become his sole athletic focus until high school. “I just fell in love with the community, the biomechanics, and the movement of skiing itself. There’s no two days on snow that are ever the same.”
His mom, Jamie Wankier Randles, said skiing was a “natural fit” for him.
“When he’s on snow, it’s an equal playground,” Wankier Randles said. “Noah has one of those personalities that when he dives into a topic or a hobby, he goes in with everything he’s got.”
While working the lifts at Snowbasin, Bury met the director of Ogden Valley of Adaptive Sports, who suggested he attend an adaptive winter sports festival in Breckenridge, Colorado. Bury wasn’t sure about participating in competitive racing at first, thinking it went against his “free spirit” approach to skiing.
“I realized that if I wanted to become a better skier technically, I had to do this. I had to try it out,” he said.
Adaptive skiing requires a specific prosthetic limb, different from the one he has for daily use. The prosthetic has a strong brace that goes up his quadricep to keep it secure, and a specialized foot that snaps into the binding, eliminating the need for a boot. Bury recounted how his foot “exploded” while on the ski hill recently, and he had to pull it apart and put it back together.
“It didn’t even phase me because I was in this beautiful place, with these amazing people, having this experience,” he said.
In January 2024, he began training with the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Winter Park, Colorado, and his competitive skiing career grew from there. He’s attended national and international competitions, including a recent second- and first-place finish at the Open National Championships in Park City, Utah.
Formerly of Layton, Bury now lives in Winter Park to accommodate his training. He began attending Weber State in person in 2021, but switched to online learning in recent years as his ski training and competition schedule picked up. He’s expected to graduate in fall 2026.
“I’ve enjoyed the autonomy. I like being able to study when I want to do it versus having to go to class at a certain time,” Bury said. “Weber State is a great community. I’ve met some of my best friends through Weber.”
Wankier Randles, an associate professor of nursing at Weber State, will be leading a study abroad trip to Guatemala when the Paralympics start, but she hopes to be home in time to watch Bury compete.
“He’s really fresh to the whole sport. He’s really excelled and he’s just going to keep growing from here,” she said.
Bury isn’t expecting to medal in his first games, but looks forward to enjoying the experience of being a member of Team USA.
“The goal is just to absorb it all. Feel the energy, the anxiety… everything about it, so that when I come back in four years, I’m going to be a lot more competitive and ready to actually go for a medal,” he said.
The 2026 Paralympics will be broadcast March 6–15 on NBC’s broadcast and cable networks, and the streaming service Peacock.
Jessica Kokesh, Marketing & Communications
801-626-7316, jessicakokesh@weber.edu- Contact:
Marketing & Communications
publicrelations@weber.edu