Tyler McKenzie’s skiing roots are based locally, though the Leominster native has taken his athleticism to a much bigger stage.
He first learned to ski on the hills of Samoset Middle School before moving on to compete for Proctor Academy in high school and Bates College at the collegiate level. And though a life-altering cycling accident in 2017 left McKenzie without use of his left arm, that proved to simply be a door opening to a new opportunity.
The 34-year-old simply adapted to the challenges in front of him.
McKenzie took up paraskiing and took to it immediately, earning a spot on Team USA, as announced by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee last week. Since the announcement, it’s been a whirlwind for McKenzie, who competed in the first of his five evens at the Milan Cortina Paralympics in Italy in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
A para Alpine skier, McKenzie kicked off his events with the standing downhill on Saturday. The Leominster native didn’t finish the race, but will still compete in the Super-G, Giant Slalom, slalom and combined events at the Games.
McKenzie suffered a complete brachial plexus avulsion while cycling in Utah in 2017, leaving the nerve roots in his left arm torn away from his spinal cord.
“I had to deal with the realization that I had pretty much lost all of the ability to use my left arm,” McKenzie told Bates College. “There were a couple of surgical options, a couple of different strategies, but to have lost all five nerve roots of the plexus right at the spinal column, it’s pretty much impossible to repair with modern surgical techniques and technology.”
During his rehab with the National Ability Center in Park City, Utah, McKenzie’s interest in paraskiing was piqued by Erik Leirfallom, the center’s high-performance para Alpine coach at the time, according to a release from Bates.
“We had a meeting and a beer, and he invited me to a camp to see if it was still fun,” McKenzie told Bates College. “At the end of the day, we participate in sports because there is some level of enjoyment factor. Whether you’re making a bunch of money or not, there’s some sort of passion for movement and being outside in a lot of capacities. And I decided that as COVID hit the world, that this was an opportunity for me to pursue both movement and the outdoors.”
“The bug was still there, the itch was still there. It’s a sport that’s hard to let go.”
McKenzie now skis with an arm brace that keeps him in an athletic ski position. Learning to ski with one pole and the balance issues that come with that were challenges as he began his paraskiing journey.
He set the goal of competing at the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing, but was sidelined prior to that with a broken ankle at the World Championships in Norway. From there, he rehabbed his ankle and underwent open cervical spine surgery in 2023 to alleviate the excruciating pain that came from his complete brachial plexus avulsion.
From there, he set his sights on a new goal.
“I realized the 2026 Paralympics were on the table,” McKenzie says in Bates’ piece on his Paralympic journey. “I was skiing fast, my fitness was coming up, and now the question was ‘how do I make the U.S. ski team and put myself in the best position to have a couple of seasons of World Cup experience before hitting the world stage of the games?'”
He joined Team USA full-time last year and got the call for this year’s Paralympics just prior to the Games.