Jake Adicoff learned something important during his time skiing at Bowdoin: why he races.
"I think the most important thing for me was kind of solidifying my understanding of why I ski race," Adicoff said. "The people that kind of surround my ski racing are a huge part of why I do it."
Competing in the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association, a circuit of NCAA schools across the East Coast, Adicoff found himself surrounded by teammates chasing the same goals. That daily environment — long training sessions, shared travel and the pressure of team scoring — reshaped how he approached the sport.
"I love the day-to-day," he said. "Getting out with people that are similarly motivated to you is so much fun, and working toward common goals is pretty incredible."
Those lessons from the Bowdoin ski team would follow Adicoff far beyond college competition — all the way to the Paralympic podium, a place he hopes to find again in the 2026 Milan Cortina Paralympics.
Finding his path in the snow
From birth, Adicoff had no vision in his right eye and very limited vision in his left. Skiing downhill at high speed wasn't always the safest option.
So when his parents enrolled him in both Alpine and Nordic programs as a child, Nordic skiing quickly became the better fit.
"I think they recognized that Alpine skiing wasn't going to be the best option for me," Adicoff said. "It's a little easier to see where you're going when you're not ripping downhill at 60 miles an hour."
Adicoff quickly developed as a competitive skier. He qualified for the junior nationals in both 2011 and 2013. It wasn't until 10th grade that he attended his first para Nordic ski camp — a step that would eventually launch his international career, including his first Paralympics in 2014 in Sochi, Russia.
When it came time for college, Adicoff enrolled at Bowdoin and joined its ski team, competing alongside some of the best Nordic skiers in the country.
"I think you'll hear this from a lot of people that competed on the EISA circuit, but it's unfair to compare that racing to anything else because I think it was the most fun circuit ever," he said. "The team scoring, the atmosphere at those races, it's like nothing that I've ever seen before. I've had a lot of like high-water marks, but that was definitely one of them."
The NCAA community that still surrounds him
At Bowdoin, Adicoff stepped away from full-time para competition for several years to focus on general ski development.
The experience reshaped his approach to the sport in ways he never expected.
Competing against elite collegiate skiers sharpened his technique and resilience, especially as he navigated courses with limited vision.
"You're competing against people that straight up have an advantage over you. At Bowdoin and throughout my ski career, I've had to accept this: I am disadvantaged going into some races, and that's OK," he said. "That's something that I still grapple with every once in a while, and I'll find myself raging because I can't see well going down certain downhills in certain light.
"One thing I've learned to do is to take a deep breath after the race is over and really understand that is the best that I can do."
Those lessons soon translated to the international stage.
Four years later, while a senior majoring in math and computer science at Bowdoin, Adicoff earned his first Paralympic medal — a silver in the 10-kilometer classical race at the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games.
Going into the 2026 Paralympics, his NCAA connection still plays a role in his career — quite literally in front of him on the racecourse.
Adicoff's two guides for the Milan Cortina Games are former NCAA skiers Peter Wolter and Reid Goble.
Wolter, a two-time NCAA All-American at Middlebury, competed in four National Collegiate Men's and Women's Skiing Championships from 2018 to 2022. Goble, a former skier at Michigan Tech, competed in the 2020 and 2021 championships.
For Adicoff, those shared backgrounds matter.
"Pretty much all (para guides) did college skiing," he said. "I need guides that are fast enough to ski in front of me. That narrows the selection pool to the top 20, 30 skiers in the U.S., and then a lot of them are focused on their own racing. So you need someone that's like willing to give up small parts of their season to come on race trips."
Racing with a guide requires constant communication and complete trust.
"You surrender a bit of your autonomy as a ski racer. You're following them and relying on them to pace the race well," he said. "In able-bodied racing, every decision is yours. So they're just very different (races). Learning how to ski by myself (at Bowdoin) was critical to my success. It made me a really good skier."
That partnership of trust and self-reliance has helped fuel Adicoff's rise to one of the world's top visually impaired Paralympic cross-country skiers. His biggest moment came at the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games.
Racing the anchor leg of Team USA's 4x2.5-kilometer relay, Adicoff pulled the Americans from fourth place — trailing the leaders by 30.7 seconds — to first. He crossed the finish line with a 26-second margin of victory, securing gold for Team USA.
Yet the pursuit continues.
"I still don't have individual gold medals," he said. "That's what I want."
But the reason Adicoff skis has never been just about medals, and he hopes others with disabilities take one message from his story.
"I would encourage anyone to never shy away from a sporting experience," he said. "For me, so much of the joy of skiing is just getting out of bed in the morning and going outside and training.
"I think that joy should be extended to anyone who wants to participate or compete at any level."
