Victoria Whitely, 16, who suffered spinal cord damage as an infant, has never walked through a crowd or run across a field — but she races down a mountain at lightning speed.
Whitely, a junior at Sacred Heart is now a para-alpine skiing phenom.
Ranked both nationally and internationally, Whitely recently won her first gold medal in Park City’s Huntsman’s Cup for adaptive athletes and was set to compete in the U.S. Para-Alpine Nationals in Winter Park Colorado.
“It has been a miracle — a miracle built on hard work and determination,” said her mother, Mandy Whitely.
At 8 months, Victoria contracted transverse myelitis, a rare neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord. In Victoria’s case, doctors attributed the condition to her body’s efforts to fight a virus gone very wrong. In attempting to combat RSV, her body produced antibodies that, instead of fighting the virus, attacked her spine, leaving her unable to move her limbs.
“At 9 months, she was a quadriplegic,” said Mandy. “We were lucky she was able to breathe on her own.”
Trying to wrap her head around the diagnosis and long-term implications, Mandy remembers asking the doctor if Victoria would ever be able to participate in family and sports activities like skiing, which she and her husband, Tim, had long enjoyed together.
The doctor quickly dismissed the question, advising the young parents that they should hope instead that Victoria would be able to regain use of one of her hands so she might one day be able to operate an electric wheelchair.
Shattered but undeterred, Mandy and Tim, devised an intense physical therapy regime for their daughter, and for three months relocated from New York City to the Kennedy Kreiger International Center for Spinal Cord Injury at Johns Hopkins University in their home state of Maryland.
Despite the center’s world-renown, highly skilled staff, and state-of-the-art equipment, recovery was not guaranteed and depended entirely on how the body would respond to physical therapy.
Gradually Victoria regained the use of her arms and hands. Within two years she regained use of most of her upper body, and by 4 years old she was able to walk with a walker.
Today she uses crutches to walk, and at times requires a wheelchair.
When Victoria was still a baby, Mandy and Tim attended a conference for families affected by transverse myelitis, where they heard para-athletes speak about the long-term benefits of sports.
As former division one lacrosse players (Mandy played at Loyola and Tim at the University of Virginia), they understood the healing and restorative power of pushing a body to its limit — and how doing so as part of a team can lift one’s spirit. But they never dreamed their daughter would be able to share the joy they had experienced in competing as part of a team.
Victoria started skiing lessons at the Adaptive Sports Foundation in Windham, N.Y., at the age of 4. The ASF allowed her a unique opportunity to meet and to spend time with children navigating similar challenges.
“I met kids my age who also didn’t fit in in school,” Victoria said. “At the ASF I felt normal.
“Skiing was a vessel to understanding who I was and how my body worked.”
She progressed from a “slider,” to a “walker,” to a “four- tracker with tethers,” to the “outrigger” she uses today. The ASF has offered Victoria the opportunity to not only to ski with her parents and three siblings, but also to realize the camaraderie that comes with being a part of a team.
Two years ago, Victoria joined the ASF’s race team, which enables athletes to reach their full potential through coaching, training, and competition.
“What she can do with her disability is amazing,” said Russ Kunkel, her coach at the ASF, who believes Victoria has the potential to compete against the best athletes in the world. He is excited to help her achieve her goal of participating in the 2030 Para-Olympics in the Swiss Alps.
“Amazing” — like “a miracle” — is the result of hours, weeks, and years of hard work and perseverance. In addition to logging countless runs with her team at Windham, Whitely works with a strength trainer in Port Chester who prepares athletes for Iron Man and Woman competitions, and she swims weekly at the Rye Y.
At the nationals, Whitely will compete in the slalom and giant slalom, and will participate in the Super G for the first time. She turns 17 on April 2, the minimum age for Super G participants.
As her mom explains with trepidation: “The Super G is a faster race with wider turns.” For the Super G, Victoria — who is five-feet tall — will strap on 6-foot 8-inch skis that she has never raced with before and enables skiers to reach faster speeds.
Victoria can’t wait.
“I’ve never been able to run and have always felt like I’ve always missed that feeling,” she said. “So the Super G is an outlet for me to experience speed and adrenaline.”
While her parents delight in their daughter’s determination, accomplishments, and competitive spirit, they can’t help but worry sometimes as she sets her sights ever higher.
When they express concern, though, Victoria is quick to assure them that, though she may be classified as disabled, she is a typical teen who thanks to her circle of friends at the ASF, has learned to take herself, her talents, her differing abilities — and life — lightly.
“When she sees us starting to worry,” Tim said, “She asks ‘what are you afraid of — I’ll get paralyzed?”
A typical teen, with a sense of humor, who just happens to be going for gold.
