For Para snowboarder Darian Haynes, everything is a waiting game.
It’s not the same waiting game that able-bodied athletes are used to. Haynes doesn’t wait for scores to appear on an electronic screen for final times at the end of runs. Nor does she wait in a booth with eloquent nicknames like “kiss and cry” for scores to appear.
Instead, she waits to see if she can even compete at all.
“I didn’t get to go to a lot of competitions last season or this season,” Haynes said. “I heard it was lack of snow…the snow was just not staying stable.”
In total, six of Haynes’ competitions she was supposed to participate in were canceled during the 2024-25 Para Snowboarding season.
“It was like half the calendar,” Haynes added. “So, I kind of just sat in Utah and was like, ‘Okay, I’m ready!’”
Sometimes, she even heard that they were “good to go” before a last-second weather change forced her and the staff to cancel her plane ticket.
“It’s kind of like (playing) ‘hot potato,’” Haynes added about the whirlwind of information that comes her way about a potential Para snowboarding competition. Oftentimes, several changes arise within a single 24-hour period.
Nonetheless, the 25-year-old has learned to stay prepared. Her all-in commitment to the sport helped her earn the 2022-23 FIS World Cup Overall Para Banked Slalom title. She also secured two medals at the 2023 World Championships. Impressively, those accolades came just two years after she began officially training in Para snowboarding.
That successful season, paired with another two years of experience, had Haynes eyeing a spot at the Paralympic Winter Games Milan-Cortina 2026. However, due to what the International Paralympic Committee claims as a low pool of athletes, her classification (women’s upper-limb) is not a part of the Milan-Cortina 2026 program.
So, unfortunately, she’ll have to wait again. However, that’s still not deterring her from becoming one of the best Para Snowboarders in the world.
Born with Erb’s palsy, a condition that affects the bundle of nerves in a person’s shoulder and limits arm movement, Haynes was always a sport-centric kid. After a move to Hawaii in 2010, she began pursuing adaptive surfing. Her persistence in the sport led to a competitive adaptive surfing career that lasted for about five years. However, travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic made her seek a different life path. After a move back to her home state of Indiana, an Instagram scrolling session led her to the profile of Adaptive Action Sports, a prominent organization that promotes Para sporting events. She saw a post about Para snowboarding, reached out via DM, and was invited to try it out for the entire month of April 2021.
“By that October, I had an apartment in Colorado,” Haynes reminisced. “I was at Copper Mountain in Colorado every single day.”
At first, she felt weird clipping into a snowboard.
“It was the weirdest feeling on the planet because you were attached to something,” she said. “I was used to being able to put my feet wherever I wanted to on a surfboard. But, I also kind of liked it.”
However, once she nailed the aspect of turning on a snowboard, it all started to click. The years of surfing had prepared her more than she had realized.
“I spent four days with a coach that had volunteered (to help me),” Haynes laughed. “By the fourth day, it was about mid-afternoon. We had gone in for lunch, and she said, ‘Okay, you don’t need me anymore. Good luck. You’re on your own now.’”
It was at that moment that Haynes pieced together that this was going to be her career for the foreseeable future. And, despite originally admitting that “being cold” was a challenge for her, she has gotten used to it now.
“But then again, it also has not been that cold this season, unfortunately,” Haynes joked, referencing her six canceled competitions once more.
Humor with an educational twist is a way that Haynes deals with both her diagnosis and the waiting game that comes with her sport. In a past interview with Team USA, she states that because of her disability, her left arm is shorter than her right, offering to provide a clearer illustration via pictures. Then, she added that her left arm “follows its own groove” and “flops around” while she’s speeding down the banked slalom course.
“If you cannot laugh at yourself, you’re going to set yourself up for disaster and depression,” Haynes said when asked about this approach.
She added even more humor and education this time around with Team USA when discussing what she does to stay ready during the waiting period.
“We all do a lot of the same wights and levels, not so much arms for me, though,” Haynes said with a laugh.
Of course, this isn’t completely true. Every elite snowboarder, including Para snowboarders, still needs to work out their upper bodies for balancing purposes. Haynes then passed along pictures of a specialized hand/wrist strap she uses to stabilize her arms when holding weights.
“It gives me a little less anxiety,” she explained. “For me, I can do inclined bench presses. But if my arm were to go off to the side – perpendicular to your body. Then, that muscle that it’s connected to – since it can’t be stretched because it’s bunched up – would snap like a rubber band.”
Humor and education is not a stance unique to Haynes in the Para athletic world. It is a tool that can be used to increase the popularity of Para sports. A lot of athletes, including Haynes, are hoping for more career stability and less of the unknown. That only comes with more attention, fans and funding.
Above all else, Haynes and every other women’s Para athlete just want to be able to compete as much as possible. Hopefully, her Paralympic dreams can someday turn into a reality.
“I’m ready to jump on that plane,” Haynes said emphatically.
Fans wanting to follow Darian Haynes’ athlete journey can do so via her Instagram. Additionally, fans can follow U.S. Para Ski & Snowboard for more coverage of all of Team USA’s Para Ski & Snowboard athletes.
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