Up To The Challenge
Sports Illustrated India|April 2018

A former Navy SEAL, wounded in combat, pushed his limits at the games

Michael Rosenberg
Up To The Challenge

DAN CNOSSEN WON five medals in the Paralympics— one gold, three silver and one bronze—but let’s be clear: He does not compete for medals. He competes because he is a sick, twisted individual.

O.K., that was rude. But how else do you explain him? Cnossen says he likes seated cross-country skiing because it is “this ultimate test of how much I can suffer and push through the pain. I don’t care about the results afterward.”

The pain was not the first reason Cnossen started skiing. He started because he lost both legs when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL in 2009, and as he sat in Walter Reed afterward, he realised he missed two things. One was the outdoors: “I was craving just being in the woods, back in nature.” The second was teammates.

This story is from the April 2018 edition of Sports Illustrated India.

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This story is from the April 2018 edition of Sports Illustrated India.

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