Competing as guides for Team USA cross-country skiing in the 2026 Milan Cortina Paralympics checks a lot of boxes for former NCAA skiers Reid Goble and Peter Wolter.
A chance to ski against some of the best athletes in the world? Check. The honor of representing their country? Absolutely. An opportunity to travel to Italy? Nice perk.
The simplest yet most meaningful part is helping their friend, Team USA Paralympian and former Bowdoin skier Jake Adicoff, achieve his goal of winning gold.
"Remove the skiing … Jake, Reid and I are really good friends," Wolter said. "So it's a really cool opportunity to be in Italy with some of your best friends. But then you add the layering of skiing at the highest level, and it's something that all three of us have been pursuing literally our entire lives."
The trio has already gotten off to a great start, with Goble and Wolter each guiding Adicoff to a gold medal. Wolter, a former Nordic skiing student-athlete at Middlebury, was the guide in Adicoff's win in the men's visually impaired cross-country sprint Tuesday. Goble, who skied for Michigan Tech, aided Adicoff to gold in the men's visually impaired 10km interval start classic Wednesday.
Related: Meet the Team USA Paralympians with NCAA ties.
As collegiate athletes at different schools, the three found their respective teams brought a sense of camaraderie to an otherwise individual sport. Now, they are re-creating that feeling on the world stage.
Lessons learned in college athletics
Wolter, Goble and Adicoff all met as youth skiers training at the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation in Sun Valley, Idaho. Wolter and Adicoff are both from Idaho and attended the same high school, while Goble, a Michigan native, traveled to Idaho to train during the summer. The three transitioned to college, spreading out to different parts of the country.
Reid Goble competes in the men's classical Nordic race during the 2021 National Collegiate Men's and Women's Skiing Championships in New Hampshire. (Photo by Brett Wilhelm / NCAA Photos)
For Goble, Michigan Tech provided an opportunity to pursue two passions at the same time, skiing at a high level while pursuing a premedical degree. While both of them required a great deal of dedication, having both on his plate provided balance for Goble.
"Only ski racing is not always the most healthy thing, and only having school is also not the most healthy thing," Goble said. "So there were times in school when you're like, 'Oh man, one of these is detracting from the other.' But in general, I would say having a little bit of a distraction from each other was good and (helped my performances) in both."
When it was difficult to find balance, Goble relied on the team around him. Bonding with his teammates and coaches and learning how he fits among the group are skills he now sees as integral to who he is and what he does today.
"You're spending a lot of time with people that you haven't grown up with," Goble said. "It's a pretty critical time in life to get along with people and learn strategies of how to socialize and be a good teammate, be a good team player. I think that was a huge skill to learn, and I would not be the person I am today without being on a team in college."
Wolter holds the same level of reverence for his relationships with his Middlebury teammates and coaches.
"Andrew Johnson and Kate Johnson, the coaches at Middlebury, were pretty powerful in building me as a skier and also just helping me build character throughout the four years that I was there," Wolter said. "And then, of course, the team itself. Those people will be some of my best friends forever, and there's no way that I would love skiing as much as I do without Middlebury."
Peter Wolter was a two-time All-American as a Nordic skier at Middlebury. (Photo by Dustin Satloff / NCAA Photos)
A two-time All-American and four-time participant at the National Collegiate Men's and Women's Skiing Championships, Wolter thinks his collegiate success played a major role in preparing him for becoming a successful professional. For him, the core of that success started with the support systems put in place for him at Middlebury.
"I think the success in college was achieved via having such a fantastic team and coaches and professors. … You have this pretty incredible foundation that's backing you," Wolter said.
Creating the team
After graduating in 2022, Wolter returned to Sun Valley and became a professional skier, joining the same foundation he had skied in as a kid. Around the same time, Adicoff was returning to the team after a three-year retirement following the 2018 Winter Paralympics.
Wolter and Adicoff began to reconnect and soon became close friends. When it became clear that Adicoff would need a new guide, Wolter became an easy choice and began his role as a guide in para skiing events in 2024.
Goble had kept in touch with Adicoff as well, crossing paths from time to time after Goble joined a professional skiing team in Bozeman, Montana, following graduation from Michigan Tech in 2021.
"Because of my connections with Sun Valley … they knew me pretty well," Goble said. "Jake and his coach texted me, and I joined and did some (FIS Para-Cross Country World Cup) races with Jake in 2024. From there on, we did some stuff over the summer together, me, Peter and Jake, and it kind of just started to culminate into, 'OK, we're going to have a team of guides and support Jake for the Paralympics.'"
Better together
With Paralympic skiing, it is common for para athletes to compete with a guide. Having two guides is rare, however, and having them split competitions 50-50 is almost unheard of.
Wolter (from left), Jake Adicoff and Goble, who met as youth skiers in Idaho, have won two golds thus far at the 2026 Milan Cortina Paralympics. (Photo by Elsa / Getty Images)
"It's definitely a very unique experience, and a lot of people note it … we get referred to often as Jake's entourage," Wolter said with a laugh.
The unique approach adds a layer of protection in case an injury or illness prevents Wolter or Goble from being able to race.
"The other reason is Jake is extremely fast and sometimes guiding can take a lot of effort, and you don't want to hold him back by not being able to ski fast enough on one of the days," Goble said. "So just going 50-50 on the races gives Jake the (best chance at) winning gold.
"Plus, it's just a lot of fun."
As the friends continue to ski for gold, they will cherish their chance to compete as a team.
"(Being a guide) turns such a solo endeavor into a team effort, and it becomes, honestly, the most fun version of cross-country skiing I think that I have done," Wolter said. "It's been pretty awesome to compete with Team USA and Jake and Reid and bring that whole team aspect back."
