Stillwater High Grad Wins Silver Medal At 2022 Paralympics

STILLWATER, MN — Stillwater High School graduate Sydney Peterson will come home from Beijing with at least one medal after placing second in her debut at the 2022 Winter Paralympics.

Peterson, 20, of Lake Elmo, earned the silver medal Monday in the women’s 15-kilometer classic standing race, finishing in 44 minutes and 38.6 seconds, according to a report on the Team USA website.

She finished less than a minute after gold-medal winner Natalie Wilkie, of Canada, after leading for the first 5 kilometers.

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Peterson, who graduated in 2020, told Team USA’s website that her first race as a Paralympian was “surreal.”

“I didn’t really expect to ever be here, and this all happened really fast, so it kind of feels surreal to be here,” Peterson said, according to the report.

She said she didn’t even know she was eligible to compete in the Paralympics as recently as a year ago.

Peterson, who is a member of the Nordic skiing team at St. Lawrence University, was born with dystonia, a disorder that causes her muscles to involuntarily contract, the report states.

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Peterson made herself known to the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing team at a World Cup event in December in Canada, where she was classified as a Para Nordic skier, according to the Team USA report.

By January, she was skiing at the world championships in Lillehammer, Norway, where she won two silver medals and a bronze, the report states.

Peterson is due to compete in a sprint race Wednesday and a middle-distance race Friday.

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