Longtime Friends Peter Wolter And Jake Adicoff Make A Natural Tandem

Peter Wolter has known Jake Adicoff for much of his life.

The two friends were raised not far from each other in the Wood River Valley in south-central Idaho. Wolter was a freshman in high school when Adicoff was a senior, and they came up together through the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation in Ketchum, Idaho.

They’ve skied together so many times over the years that Wolter is familiar with Adicoff’s tendencies as a Nordic skier. So, it made sense for Adicoff — who’s visually impaired — to reach out to Wolter when he needed to find a new guide to race alongside him in the lead-up to the Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

“My biggest concern was that I had talked to some (of his) previous guides, and they’ve been like, ‘I couldn’t stay ahead of Jake. He was too fast,’” said Wolter, 26, who’s from Hailey, Idaho.

That hasn’t been a problem so far for Wolter, a former All-American at Middlebury College in Vermont, and Adicoff, a four-time Paralympic medalist. They showed this past season that they have plenty of chemistry on the course and no trouble racing together.

“It’s a pretty easy transition for me to become the guide because Jake and I ski together all the time in training intervals, distance workouts, etc.,” Wolter said. “So, it’s extremely natural for Jake to just slot in behind me. … It’s felt like a super seamless transition to be able to step in for the guiding role.”

Wolter had never served as Adicoff’s guide in a race until this past fall in Canmore, Alberta. They then traveled to Europe, where Wolter was one of several able-bodied guides whom Adicoff relied on during a hectic winter full of world cup events and multiple cross-country skiing world championships.

In February, Adicoff had already won two medals — a gold and a silver — with guide Reid Goble at the 2025 FIS Para-Cross Country World Championships in Toblach, Italy, when he returned to the course, this time with Wolter.

On Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, Wolter helped Adicoff cruise to the gold in the 20-kilometer interval start freestyle race. They crossed the finish line in 49 minutes, 44.1 seconds — nearly three minutes ahead of France’s Anthony Chalencon, who earned the silver at 52:25.1.

“I’ve spent enough time skiing with him that I can kind of understand where he excels and where maybe I can normally put time into him,” Wolter said of Adicoff. “But there are plenty of instances in which I might be going a little bit too fast, and Jake will just basically yell at me and say, ‘Gap’ or ‘Slow down.’ And then there are also times when I’m going too slow, and Jake tells me that I can speed up.”

Three weeks later, Adicoff and Wolter arrived at the FIS Nordic World Championships in Trondheim, Norway. The event marked the first time that able-bodied and Para athletes competed at the same Nordic skiing world championships.

With a large crowd in attendance, Adicoff and Wolter made a charge down the stretch to try to catch up to Sweden’s Zebastian Modin, who’s an eight-time Paralympic medalist, in the finals of the men’s visually impaired sprint on March 5. However, they finished just behind him to take the silver at 3:25.66.

“Having a world champs medal in my bag now is really cool,” Wolter said. “And then that night, they had the award ceremony, which was a real spectacle.”

Wolter said skiing is in his “blood.” His father skied at Montana State and the University of Colorado before moving to Sun Valley to pursue a professional skiing career.

Wolter started Nordic skiing at age 2, and by the time he was in the seventh grade, he was talking about how he wanted to someday compete at world cup events and the Winter Olympics. He has represented the United States at several world cup events over the past few years, and he hopes to eventually qualify for the Winter Olympics.

In the meantime, Wolter is in line as one of the guides who will potentially join Adicoff at next year’s Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics, where Adicoff will be among the favorites to medal. The three-time Paralympian already has a gold and three silvers.

“Unless Jake and I have a drastic falling out and hate each other in the next year, which I find unlikely, I will likely be there with Jake and, I’d assume, at least one other guide,” Wolter said.

It’s a moment he’s looking forward to sharing with his friend. The Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation has a long history of producing Olympians and Paralympians, and Wolter and Adicoff are athletes on the foundation’s cross-country skiing gold team.

“I do have the goal for myself of making the Olympic team, but there’s a lot of work that has to happen between now and then to make that happen,” Wolter said. “But regardless, being able to have the opportunity to live in the village and (attend) the Opening Ceremony and be able to experience [the Paralympics] with Jake is just as much fun and just as cool of an opportunity.

“And the cool thing about going with Jake is the potential to get a medal is a whole lot higher than if I went to the Olympics for myself.”

Alex Abrams has written about Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than 15 years, including as a reporter for major newspapers in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma. He is a freelance contributor to USParaNordic.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc