Alana Nichols is a natural-born competitor.
The Farmington, N.M. native grew up playing a multitude of sports, such as volleyball and basketball at her local YMCA. Nichols loved to play softball—she was even getting attention from schools in the Southwest—and in the winters, she would head to Colorado to snowboard.
In 2000, Nichols was out on the mountain for a snowboarding trip, when she went to do a backflip. The trick didn’t go as planned as Nichols over-rotated and landed directly on a rock, smashing her spine.
“I broke my back in three places and became paralyzed upon impact,” Nichols recalled.