STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOS COURTESY SAM ADICOFF

Jake Adicoff picked up his second gold medal at the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milan Cortina on Wednesday.

Adicoff, who grew up racing with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation’s Nordic team, won the cross-country men’s 10km VI race, crossing the finish line 1 minute and 48.7 seconds ahead of his closest competitor.

Guide Reid Goble, who has skied with the Sun Valley team, served as his guide this time after Sun Valley’s Peter Wolter led Adicoff to victory in the 1.5km sprint on Tuesday.

Adicoff and Goble pulled ahead of their closest competitor by 57 seconds at the 3.7 km checkpoint and, with one lap to go, they had a 90-second cushion. When Adicoff took a bow upon crossing the finish line there wasn’t a racer in sight behind him.

“It’s awesome,” he told an NBC sports reporter. “Today was a hard day of ski racing. The snow was broken down and sloppy out there. It was hard to get up the hills and stay upright on the downhills.”

Goble said that the two were being told split times as they skied so they tried to ski the last lap relaxed to avoid falls.

Adicoff who has a degree in mathematics and computer science from Bowdoin College, said earlier that he was going to Val di Fiemme with the express goal of winning gold in all four of his races.

“We’re still mining. It’s going to be a fight to the end,” he said. “I was tired after yesterday, but I just tried to have some fun and stay in it.”

This is Adicoff’s fourth Paralympics, his first coming in Sochi, Russia, in 2014. He won silver in the men’s 10km at the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, then retired to work as a software engineer. But when the Covid pandemic hit, he came out of retirement and won a gold and two silver medals at the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing.

Wednesday ended up being a golden day for Team USA’s Para Nordic Team as Oksana Masters and Sydney Peterson also won gold in their 10km sit and standing races. Kendall Gretsch won bronze.

All four will get a rest today with no biathlon or cross-country competitions on the schedule. Adicoff will compete in a 20km race on Saturday.

Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation alpine coach Laurie Stephens, who was the flag bearer for Team USA in the Opening Ceremony, will have her chance for a medal in the women’s giant slalom sitting race today.

Stephens, one of the most decorated Paralympic Alpine skiers in U.S. history, will also compete in the slalom on Saturday. Born with spina bifada, the 42-year-old athlete competed in her first Paralympics in 2006 in Turin, Italy.

She also competed in Vancouver in 2010, Sochi in 2014 and Pyeongchang in 2018 but did not compete at the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing. She has also competed for the United States in Paralympic swimming, setting records in the 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke.

Jesse Keefe, who grew up racing with the SVSEF, finished 20th in the men’s standing downhill on the first day of the Games. He finished 22nd in the downhill in the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing.

The 21-year-old placed 14th in the Super-G but did not finish his Super-G race in the combined. He will have another opportunity to compete Friday when he races in the giant slalom. He will finish out the games racing in the slalom on Sunday.

Keefe placed ninth in slalom at the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing.