CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Brenna Huckaby and her snowboard have been showstoppers at the Milan Cortina Paralympic Games.
There’s Huckaby in glitter and fancy makeup, and her snowboard decorated with pictures of her cat named “Mouse.”
“My cat can’t be here so we put her on my board so she could be here with us,” Huckaby says. “And it just makes me happy. I just look at her, give it a little kiss and go. It’s fun.”
The 30-year-old Huckaby has come to Milan Cortina as one of Para snowboard’s most successful female athletes with three Paralympic gold medals and one bronze. She also arrived with colored highlights in her hair and luggage full of makeup.
She loves showing off her looks.
“I just started glitter this season,” she says. “I was just having a lot of fun with it, sharing it with the other competitors, and I was like, ’Why not go all out, get eyeshadow.’ It’s fun. Shining from the inside out, baby.”
The face glitter goes back to highly decorated American cross-country skier Jessie Diggins, who competed in her final Olympics at Milan Cortina last month. Diggins said glitter was a way to remind herself to have fun.
Saylor O’Brien, another American Paralympian at Milan Cortina, says she was inspired by Diggins. and had little stars on her cheek during her Para alpine skiing race on Monday.
Huckaby calls “Mouse” her third daughter. The “other two,” nine-year-old Lilah and six-year-old Sloan, are in Cortina d’Ampezzo to watch her compete. Wearing the same type of lavish, bright-colored clothing as their mom and sporting colored highlights in their hair, they were hugging and kissing Huckaby after one of her runs on Sunday.
“This is the first race that both of my girls, my daughters, have been to together, and I’m just happy that they get to see mom do what she does best,” she says. “I’m excited, because this has always been more than just me, and getting to share that with them and just have this giant celebration is amazing.”
Huckaby finished sixth in Para snowboard cross on Sunday, and next Saturday will try to win her third straight gold medal in Para snowboard banked slalom.
She won gold in Para snowboard cross in the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, and a bronze four years later in Beijing.
“Why do we act like not winning is the end-all be-all?” she says. “I’m here representing a very small portion of people who want to see themselves represented … if they lose their leg above the knee, life does not end. I accomplished that here simply by being.”
Huckaby grew up in Louisiana as a competitive gymnast and was introduced to Para snowboarding after being diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer that led to the amputation of her leg above the knee when she was 14.
Huckaby had to lobby her way into the starting lineup for the Beijing Games after the International Paralympic Committee eliminated her event classifications given there weren’t enough women in the field. She eventually earned the right to compete in medal events initially limited to less impaired athletes.
She’s kept on shining.
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AP Winter Paralympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paralympic-games
