Palmer’s Andrew Kurka ended the season on a winning note this week when he captured the giant slalom title at the North American para-alpine championships in Winter Park, Colorado.
Kurka, still one of the world’s top sit-skiers at age 32, won both GS runs Wednesday to breeze to the gold medal.
His two-run total time of 2 minutes, 2.63 seconds put him more than three seconds ahead of the runnerup.
It was the perfect end to a season that included a huge victory January in Cortina, Italy, on the same slope where the 2026 Winter Paralympics downhill race will be held. The win was Kurka’s first since he suffered devastating injuries at the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing.
Kurka is a three-time Paralympian who won downhill gold and super-G silver at the 2018 Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Four years later he was a favorite going into Beijing. Sports Illustrated even put him on the cover of its Paralympic preview edition.
But on the day of his first race – the downhill, his best event – he crashed while training on an adjacent hill one hour before his race.
Kurka broke his arm but raced anyway, recording an astonishing fourth-place finish. But the broken arm plus serious injuries to a shoulder and a thumb kept him out of other races in Beijing.
This year’s victories in Cortina and Winter Park should set him up well for next season.
“It’s been a good year,” Kurka said on social media. “Looking forward to next year!”