US Para Athlete Schultz Taking Next Step in his Snowboarding Career

At the end of the season, Para snowboarding legend and innovator “Monster” Mike Schultz announced that after three Paralympic Games and four Paralympic medals (one gold, two silver, one bronze), he is retiring from competitive snowboarding. But numbers alone can't capture what he’s meant to the sport.

Long before he first strapped in to a snowboard, Schultz was dominating in snocross and motocross back home in Minnesota. In 2008 during a snowmobile competition, he sustained a severe compound fracture to his knee and, after multiple surgeries, had his leg amputated above the knee. Shortly after his crash, Mike returned to sports and realized that the prosthetics available weren’t up to par with what he needed to compete at the highest level. What began as a personal project turned into a revolution: Schultz founded BioDapt and engineered a mechanical knee using a bike shock, along with a prosthetic foot that would go on to become the gold standard for lower limb athletes worldwide.

Along this journey, Schultz discovered snowboarding. Shortly after he took to the slopes for the first time, he was competing at the X Games, then rising through the World Cup circuit ranks. By 2018, he was standing atop the Paralympic podium in his debut with gold in snowboard cross and silver in banked slalom.

Despite his success, he never slowed down. Over the next eight years, Schultz stacked up seven World Championship medals, 28 World Cup podiums, and added two more Paralympic medals to his collection. But his influence stretches far beyond the podium. Every athlete riding with his cutting-edge equipment today is part of his legacy.

Now, Schultz is shifting his focus and investing in the sport’s future. With plans to grow BioDapt and continue pushing innovation, his next chapter may be even more impactful than his competitive one.

“Big picture, I'm trying to progress the sport as a whole and am very proud that I could be a part of that,” said Schultz. “That is one of the big reasons that I’m retiring from snowboard racing, so I can spend more time with my business and more time with my family, of course, but I’ve got some big ideas I've wanted to pursue for a while, but I’ve been too busy with snowboarding."

While this marks the end of an era on the course, it’s far from goodbye. If anything, Mike Schultz is just getting started.