On March 12, 2018, Mike Schultz finished fifth in his time trial, just two spots short of an automatic berth to the quarterfinal of the Men’s Snowboard Cross SB-LL1. The two-place difference? Less than a third of a second.
A little over three hours later, Schultz soared down the same slope in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea and captured his first Paralympic gold—powered by the prosthetic leg he engineered himself.
But this wasn’t Schultz’s first sport or his first comeback. Before snowboarding, he earned his nickname, “Monster Mike,” for his aggressive play style in snocross.
Since the age of 14, Schultz has always loved motorsports, finding his start in BMX riding.
“The first time I lined up on a start gate with 35-plus other riders going into turn one, I was hooked.” Schultz said.
Growing up in Kimball, Minnesota, with a population of less than 1,000 people, the freezing winters and heavy snow led the soon-to-be Monster into snowmobile racing, a sport which he’s competed in since 2002.
At 27, Schultz’s high-speed career came to a halt during a race that would change everything.
On the second stop of the 2008 International Series of Champions tour in Ironwood, Michigan, Schultz’s bike made a wrong turn and he was thrown from the machine, and landed feet first. With all of his weight on his lower body, he hyperextended his left knee and severed an artery, resulting in significant blood loss.
“It was a struggle,” he said. “Physically, I almost didn’t make it through because I had lost so much blood and had some real circulation complications while at the hospital.”
The local hospital in Ironwood was unable to take proper care of the injury, sending Schultz and his wife, Sara, back to Minnesota over two hours away to receive full treatment. After just three days in the hospital, doctors told the pro racer that the only way he would survive is by amputating his left leg above the knee.
“To hear that as a top level athlete is something you’re not really prepared for,” Schultz said.
Due to the injury’s significance, Schultz lost a large amount of blood, causing some circulation issues and a rapid decline in his health which surged the timeline of his surgery. Immediately following his 13 day stint in the hospital, Schultz struggled with the idea of returning to professional sports but eventually returned to his snowmobile just weeks after his amputation.
While his wife was at work, he snuck out to the garage, pulled out his snowmobile, and took his first ride again. Granted, it was bumpy. Schultz laughed at the memory, thinking about the trouble he would’ve been in with his wife and doctor after getting stuck out in the snow. Still, the thrill of being back behind the handlebars drove him to return to professional action.
“It was just like, I can’t give it up,” he said. “I just need to find a way. And that’s when I started thinking about developing my own prosthetic leg to get back into riding.”
Schultz’s first prosthetic was developed to serve as an everyday adaptive helper for walking, but it could not handle the impact and movement required for motorsports.
A self-proclaimed “garage guy,” Schultz never had any technical training or education with engineering before building his prosthetic. It was all hands-on experience working in his own home.
So, he took matters into his own hands.
“I’m Mr. Fix it,” he said. “I just look at something, and I want to make it better in some way or another. That’s just how my mind works.”
Faced with limitations, Schultz turned to innovation—not in a lab, but in his own garage.
“I love to create and build things in my shop,” he said. “What better project than to build my own leg to get me back into the stuff I love most?”
It was only five weeks from his first notebook drawing that he had a working prototype in hand. Starting with just a mountain bike shock absorber, Schultz engineered a part to utilize in his sports prosthesis, the Moto Knee.
Fast forward to the summer of 2009, not even a year later—Schultz finished second in the ESPN Summer X Games Adaptive Super-X, on his Moto Knee.
The following year, Schultz founded his company BioDapt, which designs, manufactures and distributes lower limb prosthetic components that allow amputees to participate in action sports and activities.
“The goal originally was to create something to get back on my motocross bike and my snowmobile,” he said. “And about a year later, [I realized] that there were so many other adaptive athletes that could utilize the equipment I was developing.”
While racing snowmobiles at the X Games, Schultz ran into a snowboarder who sparked his excitement to adapt the Moto Knee to other sports. He went on to build knees for one of his first customers, Walter Reed Medical Center, a military hospital in Maryland, to help veterans with combat injuries.
“You know Monster Mike the athlete focused so much on my competitive side, but then also just realizing that what I created also helped all these other athletes achieve better performance, and to have a small part in that performance of other athletes is far beyond, you know, winning a medal,” Schultz said.
Alongside the Moto Knee, Schultz developed the Versa Foot, which are both now on their second version, with more than 100 wounded soldiers, extreme athletes, and amputees using BioDapt’s prosthetics, including the entire U.S. Paralympic snowboard team.
Equipped with his own invention and a renewed sense of purpose, Schultz took on a new challenge: snowboarding.
Now, nearly two decades after his accident, Schultz is preparing for what could be his final Games.
At 44 years old, Schultz enters his 11th year on the U.S. Paralympic snowboard team as a two-time Paralympian and three-time Paralympic medalist with 1 gold and 2 silver medals. He served as an Opening Ceremony flagbearer for Team USA in 2018.
“Pyeongchang, it was a hard one to beat, because I was flag bearer in an Opening Ceremony, and then to follow it up with you know, winning that gold was such a flood of emotions,” Schultz said. “Because it’s so much bigger than me as an athlete, you know, representing your country on the world stage is unlike anything.
Schultz said he’d be done before, but somehow, he always finds his way back.
“I can’t walk away from it,” he said. “I can’t, I can’t be done with it. That’s why I stuck around so long. After every last Games, I was like, ‘I’m going to retire and move on to the next thing’ and then a few months out, I’m like, Oh, I miss it already.’”
Part of that pull comes from the people around him.
“Being part of the U.S. team and having my teammates around me, you know, traveling around the world, it’s very taxing and complicated sometimes, but, you know, it’s my other family,” Schultz said.
It’s a bond that holds him through long travel days and training stretches far from home. On the road to the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Paralympics, Schultz is motivated by more than medals.
“Of course I expect to be on the podium,” he told NBC Sports this fall “That’s what I’m driving for. That’s what my goals are, but it’s not just performance this time around. My career has a timeline on it, and I really want to soak it all in and make the most of it, no matter how the performance goes.”
Regardless of the results, Schultz says he’s focused on enjoying the process and the opportunity to compete again.
“Having the ability to enjoy sport, like snowboarding, whether it’s competitive or not, sport is a powerful thing for mind and body, and it’s not always easy, but the payoff is enormous, because there’s nothing better than enjoying something you’re passionate about at a physical level and an emotional level.”
Throughout the winter, in a series called Hometown Hopefuls, NBC is spotlighting the stories of Olympic and Paralympic athletes from across the United States as they work towards the opportunity to represent their country at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. We’ll learn about their paths to their sports’ biggest stage, the communities that have been formative along the way, and the causes they’re committed to in their hometowns and around the world. Visit nbcsports.com/hometown-hopefuls for more stories on the road to Milan Cortina.
