Para snowboarder Brenna Huckaby wins second career ESPY

Brenna Huckaby competing in a para snowboarding intenational event. The athlete was in L.A. to recieve her second ESPY award on Thursday. Photo: U.S. Ski and Snowboard

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Three-time Paralympic gold medalist, five-time World Champion, and one of the most decorated para snowboard athletes of all time, Brenna Huckaby, has won the 2024 “Best Athlete with a Disability” ESPY at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles, Calif. on Thursday. This is her second ESPY win and third nomination. 

The U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s Para Snowboard Team athlete is coming off of one of the best seasons of her career, and one that she says she is “most proud of.” Huckaby’s 2023-24 season included seven World Cup wins and 10 podiums across snowboard cross and banked slalom disciplines, which led to her taking home all three FIS Crystal Globes, marking her the best woman para snowboarder of the season. 

Huckaby represents the Snowbird Sports Education Foundation.

Huckaby was first nominated to the U.S. Para Snowboard Team in 2015, an opportunity that she took and ran with. By 2017, she had already been crowned World Champion three times and was on the way to her first Winter Paralympic Games in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She brought home two gold medals in snowboard cross and banked slalom from her first games before taking a break from the sport to give birth to her second daughter in 2020. Less than a year later, she was back on the World Cup circuit and earned two more World Championships medals (one gold, one silver) in 2021.

Since then, she has earned another gold and a bronze medal at the 2022 Winter Paralympics, all while continuing to fight for opportunities for para athletes. Vying for the win in every event she starts, Huckaby’s accolades are a testament to her strength and consistency as an athlete.

“We are thrilled to see Brenna win her second ESPY,” said Sophie Goldschmidt, President and CEO of U.S. Ski & Snowboard in a statement. “Brenna is a champion of Para sport and a role model for so many on and off the snow. We are lucky to have athletes like her in our organization and I’m excited to see what is to come for her heading into a World Championship season.” 

Brenna was nominated alongside para-cycling/para nordic skier Oksana Masters and para track and field athletes Ezra Frech and Haydin Blackwell.