For The Love Of Snow, Jake Adicoff’s Quest For Para Nordic Success Continues

Where in the world is Jake Adicoff?

The four-time Paralympic medalist has been known to travel across the globe with his friends in an enduring quest to get on snow throughout the year. He often posts about his trips to Cananda and Europe on Instagram.

Adicoff, who’s a member of the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing national team, kicked off the new season by competing in the Alaska SuperTour in Anchorage on Dec. 7. He finished the 10-kilometer race in 30 minutes, 53.6 seconds, only 2:35.9 behind the top men’s skier, Hunter Wonders, who retired from the Stifel U.S Cross Country Ski Team in 2023.

Adicoff was joined in Anchorage by two of his close friends, Reid Goble and Peter Wolter. The three athletes look for any reason to get together and ski, whether it’s for fun or in preparation for the Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 in March.

Goble and Wolter serve as guides for Adicoff, who’s visually impaired and often relies on the other two skiers to help him navigate the course during a race.

“First and foremost, they’re both good friends of mine,” said Adicoff, a native of Sun Valley, Idaho. “In a group, we’re hanging out, we’re talking a lot of trash and having a good time generally.”

The trio will likely get to spend more time hanging out together in Italy later this winter.

Adicoff, 30, is on track to qualify for the Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. It would be his fourth Winter Paralympics after making his debut in Sochi as a high school senior in 2014, and he has already set some lofty goals for the upcoming Winter Games.

Despite being one of the world’s top visually impaired skiers, Adicoff earned his only gold medal as a member of the U.S. 4x2.5-kilometer mixed relay team at the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics. He hopes to win his first individual gold, if not more, in Italy.

“One habit that’s made me successful as a skier is — I mean this sounds a little bit mundane, a little bit normal — but is goal setting and staying focused on those goals,” Adicoff said. “I really like the process every spring after taking like two weeks off from racing and training to come back and think about what happened last year, what worked well and what didn’t. And (then I’m)

kind of adjusting the training, adjusting the planning to address these weak points and keep on going with the strengths.”

Adicoff spent time this offseason training with his professional ski team in Sun Valley and with his U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing teammates at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.

He said he uses positive thinking to help him get through particularly difficult training sessions. As he’s struggling through practices, he’ll remember how it felt when he performed well in the past and visualize what it will look like to be successful in the future.

“I think that those moments, those times when I’m in the most pain, thinking and doing this forward thinking are kind of a habit of mine that has driven me to some pretty high heights,” Adicoff said.

Adicoff relied on three guides during his races last season, including Goble and Wolter. He hopes that familiarity with his guides will translate to him enjoying even more success at Milano Cortina.

Last February, Adicoff skied alongside Goble, his friend from their days training in Sun Valley, at the 2025 FIS Para-Cross Country World Championships in Toblach, Italy. They overcame tricky course conditions to win the 10-kilometer interval start classic cross-country skiing race on the opening day of the world championships on Feb. 12.

The next day, Adicoff and Goble skied the anchor leg for the Americans during the mixed open relay race and helped lead the U.S. to the silver medal.

Adicoff then paired with Wolter, his longtime friend, to cruise to the gold in the 20-kilometer interval start free race at the world championships. They crossed the finish line nearly three minutes ahead of France’s Anthony Chalencon, who earned the silver medal.

Adicoff said he plans to use Goble and Wolter as his guides again this season, and they’ll likely accompany him to the Winter Paralympics in March.

“Technically, Peter is a really strong skate skier. He’s super easy to ski behind,” Adicoff said. “When you’re working with a guide like I am, part of the game is drafting, so you’re trying to ski behind them as close behind them as possible. (With) Peter, it’s easy to skate behind…

“Reed’s strength is he’s good over some short distances, and he’s good tactically, too. He’s had a long reputation of doing really well in sprint heats when you need to make these tactical choices.”

Adicoff competed at his first Winter Paralympic in Sochi at age 18, and he believed he was done racing after earning a silver medal four years later at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. He stopped skiing and worked for a couple of years in the tech industry in San Francisco.

However, after moving back to Idaho during the coronavirus pandemic, Adicoff said he started joining his friends who were skiing in Sun Valley for their training sessions. It was something he could do safely while social distancing.

“And then a year and a half in, I was a little bit more fit than I maybe should have been being a retired skier,” Adicoff said. “I kind of had some conversations with friends and coaches at the time, and one of my friends who was then my guide, we were on a run one day. We were talking about skiing and working and all this life stuff, and he was like, ‘I think that you should return to skiing, and I think that I should be your guide.’”

Adicoff said he went home from practice and considered what his friend had said.

“It only took like three days to be like, ‘OK, absolutely, I want this again,’” Adicoff said. “And then I started to put the wheels in motion. I knew that I wanted to come back and be a high-level racer again. That was five and a half years now. It seems crazy.”

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.