‘It’s very emotional’: Army veteran returns to ‘life-changing’ winter sports clinic for third year

Frances Osorio Rivera first came to the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic in Snowmass Village in 2019, after her coach and physical therapist at the Miami VA urged her to apply to the clinic.

The clinic has helped her build a community and improve her skills at snowboarding, the reason she’s come back every year since.

“In 2019 the amount of veterans that came to this event was similar to this year… and it was humongous,” Osorio Rivera said. “It blew my mind the magnitude of it. The amount of support, the volunteers, everything, just the scale of it, it’s very emotional.”

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About 400 veterans from across the country joined this year’s National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic. It was the 38th annual clinic, where it hosted its 10,000th veteran. It was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The clinic helps disabled veterans with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, orthopedic amputations, and visual impairments explore recovery through alpine skiing, sled hockey, and other adaptive sports. It showcases the health and rehabilitative benefits of adaptive sports for veterans.

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Osorio Rivera served as a medic in the Army from 2009-2014. She is from Puerto Rico and now lives in Miami, and spent much of her time engaging in watersports like kiteboarding and surfing. When she had to have her leg amputated below the knee, instead of giving up the sports she loved she adapted and has since become an advocate for others with disabilities interested in adaptive sports.

She first tried snowboarding when she joined the clinic in 2019, but Osorio Rivera’s years of kiteboarding experience helped her pick up the sport quickly.

After Osorio Rivera left the military, she obtained a bachelor’s degree in nursing. But she decided to pursue kiteboarding professionally, and is now a representative of a kiteboarding company. 

“Even though I’m no longer serving, I’m still putting my time and efforts into volunteering with nonprofits,” she said. “I’m on the board of a nonprofit and we teach veterans how to kiteboard with any disability or inability, so I’m very privileged that I’ve been able to do what I’ve been able to do with my life, and I have mostly the military to thank.”

The coaches and physical therapists at the sports clinic have helped Osorio Rivera pick up snowboarding, which she said is similar to kiteboarding but still has its own challenges that she isn’t used to. 

But her favorite part of the winter sports clinic is the community she has built in the three years she’s attended, and the lives she’s seen change for the better after participating in the clinic.

“Getting to come back to a place where there is such a sense of community, it’s like a little bubble of how the world should be but isn’t, and to get together with people that I’ve known over the years, is amazing,” Osorio Rivera said. “And of course, get on the mountain, shred, and improve my skill level.”

The winter sports clinic in Snowmass ran from April 1-7. It is co-hosted by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Disabled American Veterans.

In addition to skiing and sled hockey, the clinic also provided scuba diving, snowmobiling, and rock climbing.