Twenty years ago, Laurie Stephens stood at the start gate in Torino, Italy, for her Paralympic debut. She was 21, had spina bifida, had been on a monoski since she was 15, and was about to win two gold medals.

On Thursday, her teammates voted her to carry the U.S. flag into Italy one last time.

Stephens will serve as one of Team USA's two flag bearers at the 2026 Winter Paralympic opening ceremony on March 6 at the Arena di Verona. She'll carry it into her sixth and final Paralympic Games, 20 years after the country first met her as a competitor.

Her co-flag bearer is Josh Pauls, who plays sled hockey. But the selection process matters here: the honor isn't appointed. Team USA athletes vote for it themselves, through the Team USA Athletes' Commission. When the people who know what it takes chose Laurie Stephens, they chose a teammate who has been doing this longer than most of them have been competing.

From a Weekend Clinic to Two Paralympic Golds

Stephens was born with spina bifida and has used a wheelchair her entire life. When she was 12, her parents sent her to a weekend ski clinic at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, one of those introductory adaptive sports programs where kids with physical disabilities get their first time on snow. She found a monoski there. A monoski looks like a chair mounted on a single ski, controlled with outrigger poles. It's the sitting equivalent of the two-ski setup everyone else uses.

She kept going. By 15, she had joined Chris Devlin-Young's New England Adaptive Ski Team and started racing. By 20, she was the overall and giant slalom World Cup champion in her first professional season.

She showed up in Torino in 2006 and won gold in downhill. Then gold in super-G. Then silver in giant slalom. Three medals in her debut.

Six Games, Seven Medals, No Slowing Down

What happened next wasn't a decline into consistency. It was the thing itself. Downhill is the fastest event in para alpine skiing, with sitting athletes hitting speeds over 80 mph on the steepest runs. Stephens medaled in it at four consecutive Games, taking silver in Vancouver in 2010, bronze twice in Sochi in 2014, and bronze again in PyeongChang in 2018. She showed up at the same event four times and stood on the podium every time.

Add the full ledger: seven Paralympic medals total, four Crystal Globes as World Cup overall champion in the women's sitting class, world championship gold in 2021 in giant slalom. And two U.S. records in Paralympic swimming, the 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke. The monoski was never the whole of it. She's an athlete who found sport the way some people find language: as a native speaker.

Beijing 2022 didn't produce a medal. She competed in multiple events. She kept showing up.

The Flag and What It Represents

The announcement came today, March 4, two days before the opening ceremony. Stephens turns 42 tomorrow. Her birthday falls between the announcement and the Games. By the time she walks into the Arena di Verona on March 6, she'll have crossed into a new year of her life and a new chapter of her career.

She won't be racing in Italy forever. After Milano Cortina, she plans to coach, to work with the next generation of para alpine athletes the way her own mentor, Chris Devlin-Young, worked with her when she was a teenager on a New Hampshire slope. She was chosen by a vote of her peers to lead a team she's been part of for twenty years.

What Adaptive Sports Clinics Can Start

For parents of kids with physical disabilities, there's something specific in how Stephens' story begins: a weekend clinic. A program that her parents found and signed her up for when she was 12.

Adaptive skiing programs exist at resorts across the country, including through the National Sports Center for the Disabled, Disabled Sports USA, and programs affiliated with the U.S. Adaptive Alpine Ski Team pipeline. Most start younger than you might expect, and most are accessible to children who have never been on snow before.

Stephens won her first Paralympic gold in the same country she's now walking into as flag bearer. If your kid has a physical disability and hasn't been on snow, that path is open: the National Sports Center for the Disabled and Disabled Sports USA run adaptive skiing programs at resorts across the country. Most start younger than families expect, and none of them require elite ability to walk through the door.

The opening ceremony is March 6 at 1:30 PM ET on Peacock and NBC. She'll be at the front.