Meet Dani Aravich: a Paralympic cross-country skier and biathlete who is looking to change the game — on and off the snow.

TOGETHXR: Congratulations on qualifying for the Paralympics! What's your mindset going into these next few events and the Paralympics?
DA: I am feeling… not the best right now — which is what's supposed to happen. It's very intentional that I trained and raced a lot in the December/January months, so that when it comes to the final few weeks of prep at the end of February, I go from a ton of training hours, volume, and beating up the body, to dropping down significantly and absorbing all of those 11 months of training to be really sharp and fast in March. I'm always a person who's a better second-half racer and second-half-of-the-season racer. And so the fact that I'm not performing the way I want to right now is okay — because the goal is to perform in March. That's tough, when you still have a World Cup season and want to be on the podium. I’m trying to swallow that and realize it's for the greater good, to feel really good in March. All of this was really intentional and it is for this higher purpose of trying to peak in March. People often miss their peak, even in Olympic and Paralympic years, because there's so many other races. It's been a learning experience with my own body and my own training.

TOGETHXR: How did you get to that point of understanding that — knowing your process and trusting that you’re doing what you need to in order to peak at the right time? 

DA: A lot of conversations with physiologists. I'm very immature in a certain sense, in my years of training for an endurance sport. A lot of people have way more years under their belt — they’re able to play with the amount of hours that they train in a year and their intensity. I've had, in these four years, to quickly try to figure it out. I've spent a lot of time talking to my coach, our physiologists, and then, for the emotional part of not feeling like you're doing the best — a sports psych, to understand what the priority is and how it works. 

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I had mono last season. I thought I was doomed and done for. I got back into racing pretty soon after mono — training a lot, feeling exhausted, feeling like I wasn’t racing to my potential. Then, I had a training camp where I dropped in hours, absorbed, and went back to some races in early March and I skied faster than I ever skied. So, fingers crossed that that happens again. 

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It's maybe a strength that works for me because of when the Paralympics fall, but I do need to explore in the future… I don't want to feel like I take the first half of the season to warm up. I'm hoping that I can start to figure out what those key components are that help with bringing that snappiness back, so I can tap into it earlier in the season in non-Paralympic years.

TOGETHXR: You mentioned feeling like you have a little less experience than some of your competitors. Tell us how you got into skiing and biathlon.

DA: Cross-country skiing and biathlon are still somewhat niche in the United States, but like in a lot of places in the world, it's ingrained in their culture. Even the towns we stay in for races, there are cross-country ski trails everywhere. There's biathlon stadiums — biathlon races in Europe have like, 60,000 people coming out to watch them. It's just a much bigger cultural sporting experience for those sports in Europe, compared to the States. When I grew up, I was doing downhill skiing recreationally, but never cross-country. 

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I was training for paralympic track and field in 2019 while I was working for the NBA. Through that training, I got asked by a development coach for US para cross-country skiing and triathlon to try it at a camp. I never went into that thinking I'd be doing it full-time. It was very much just for fun — like,  this is a new experience, free trip to Colorado to try it out. When I walked out, I was so frustrated at how bad I was. I thought, “I need to figure out how to get good at this”. I was told it would take six to eight years to really learn technique. I'm about five and a half years in now. 

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When I showed up to my first World Cup competition less than a year and a half after trying the sport, I realized that I had underestimated what it would take. It was one thing to qualify, but then the gaps to get to the top level were huge margins. I've made a lot of leaps, but I'm still racing against people who started skiing when they were five or six. So a lot of them got through those clunky awkward stages on skis at a much earlier age. Their knowledge of the sport — everything from equipment, to technique, to snow conditions — is so much more in depth than me, that I don't always make the best decisions. 

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Less than two years into skiing, I qualified for Beijing, and I had never skied in snow that was that slushy. I was getting tripped up, caught in it, falling all over the place, and so frustrated. I just hadn't had that experience in that type of snow. Each time that I get on skis or have a race, I can pick up a new piece of knowledge that you only get from doing it. It can be really frustrating.

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It's such a technically challenging sport. It's so fascinating because it takes this meeting of very good, efficient technique and being a very good endurance athlete — and one does not outweigh the other. The two sides have to meet. I think I'm a very good endurance athlete, who can withstand a lot of pain, and put myself out there in a race — but I'm still working on the two coming together.

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With biathlon, I've just really loved it. It's unique. In the para world, most athletes do both cross-country and biathlon, which doesn't happen on the Olympic side, where it's really two separate sports. With Biathlon, there are so many different variables. You're doing a cross-country ski race, but then you have this very different added element of shooting, that can also help alter the results. It can be a very wild experience to think, “Oh well, the best person in the world just missed shots, and now there's space for the rest of the field to try to race for a podium.” 

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It's such a cool sport with so much history in Europe that doesn't get appreciated in the United States. I think it's still underappreciated because there's the element of the rifle — but [biathlon] teaches very safe and responsible marksmanship. It's just really fun to watch. If you ever get to watch World Cup biathlon, Olympic biathlon, Paralympic biathlon — it has this added layer to a typical ski race that can alter the results, and you can watch people go head-to-head. The shots matter and you can feel the pressure through the screen when you're watching it, thinking, “If they miss this, they're out of medal contention.” It's a really fun, frustrating, heartbreaking, fascinating sport.

TOGETHXR: You travel so much for competitions. What's your favorite thing to do to pass the time when you're traveling? 

DA: Usually, I don’t have a ton of time, because I've always been an athlete who works. I am typically working every hour that I'm not training. I recently stepped back from all of my jobs, at the beginning of this year, to focus on the Games, but I still run Culxtured, alongside three other Paralympic athletes. Culxtured is a Paralympic media company, so we have a lot going on right now, trying to focus on how we're going to tell the stories for Milan. I've started working on some different podcast projects, too, so I still feel like every time I'm not training, I'm on my laptop doing something. 

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TOGETHXR: You helped co-found Culxtured in 2024 to bring more coverage and exposure to para athletes. Tell us why you and your co-founders wanted to start this. What’s been your favorite part of the journey thus far?

DA: We felt like, leading into the Paris Paralympics, there still wasn't enough coverage for all of the space that's in between the Games. The Games get so much attention, but there's so much that happens in order for athletes to get to the Games — in the World Cups, in the World Championships — that doesn't get covered. Oftentimes when the media picks up on the stories, it comes from a very unintentionally ableist mindset of inspiration, rather than focusing on the elite sport. So, four of us came together: Brenna Huckaby, who will be competing in Milan for Para snowboard, and our two male counterparts, who compete in wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby. 

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It's been really cool to see that athletes have also been fans of it. We're doing it for them — we want them to get the media attention they deserve and get the exposure that will hopefully lead to more TV coverage, sponsorship dollars, and all of these things that other athletes get from competing. 

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A year out from the Milan Paralympics, we did a piece of content where we were able to get 15 athletes from nine different nations to contribute content — it felt really special, so that’s probably one of my favorite things we’ve done so far. It's also been really special that people have taken notice. When Brenna and I were at the Team USA Media Summit this fall ahead of Milan, so many outlets — from NBC to Yahoo to local news stations — knew about it, asked us about it, and asked about the mission. People are taking notice of it. We just hope that, in Milan, we can continue to grow our platform and share the stories tenfold — because there are going to be very exciting sports and athletes in Milan — and they deserve plenty of media coverage.

TOGETHXR: What's one misconception you think people have about Paralympics or Para athletes that you wish you never had to hear about again?

DA: That the sports are too niche or that no one watches them. Maybe people don't watch them because they can't find them, except for at the Paralympics! If they're not being streamed or broadcasted, how is anyone going to become a fan of something they can't watch? 

TOGETHXR: What are you most excited about for the Paralympic experience in Milan? Are there any other athletes or parathletes that you're really excited to see?
DA: I'm most excited to not be in a COVID bubble, because my two Paralympics were the COVID Games, so I didn't have anyone there for either one. Fans weren’t allowed. So, this time, I’ve invited family and friends. I've been saving up money to cover some of the Airbnb costs for them to come out. I really want anyone who is able and willing to come out and watch. I think our tally now is up to like 27 people coming to a tiny town in the Italian Dolommites. I wanted to make them feel like this isn’t just about me and my teammates getting to compete, but they too now will be advocates and ambassadors for para sport. I called them my Milan bridesmaids, and got them gift baskets so that they too feel like they are a part of the Games experience. 

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The athlete that I'm most excited to watch would be Brittany Bowe's 1000m race in speedskating. Brittany has become a good friend of mine. I love her sister and her family. 

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I'm also excited to watch the women's US para alpine team. It’s been a pretty small team for a long time, but there are a couple new athletes on the World Cup circuit this year from the States who have been getting podiums. Watching women's Para alpine grow for the U.S. team is really exciting. I'm very luck to witness firsthand the greatest winter Paralympian of all time, which is Oksana Masters. I just witnessed her intense grit… She kicks ass and she's the hardest competitor I think anyone will ever have to face in their life. I'm very lucky I get to witness greatness so close up.

Your favorite sports movie: The Mighty Ducks.

Your go-to snack: Candy. Haribo gummy frogs.

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Your favorite non-ski female athlete that is killing the game right now: Bea Kim, halfpipe snowboarder. She's great.

Your favorite album or favorite artist from 2025: The one who does "Where the Hell is My Husband" — Raye!

Your biggest pet peeve: People who don't act like things matter. In sports, people often put on this persona of casualness, or they try to act like it doesn't matter to them. It used to be cool to be nonchalant or pretend to not care. But, I think it's very powerful for people to show when they care, to be emotional, and to be upset when things in a race or a competition don't go well. It just bothers me when people do that — because I know they do care, but they act like they don't.

Your biggest piece of advice for young athletes: My biggest piece of advice for young athletes is to try as many sports as possible and not to specialize too early.