Nathan Pare and Maggie Swain are both making names for themselves in their respective winter sports, with dreams of one day reaching the Olympics. And both are no strangers to overcoming adversity to do it.

Pare and Swain, who attend Carrabassett Valley Academy, were recently chosen to represent Team USA at the FIS World Junior Championships, which pits the best winter athletes in the world from ages 16-20.

FIS, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, is the highest international governing body for ski and snowboarding. Pare, 19 and a Hall-Dale High graduate, was set to compete at the FIS Snowboard Cross World Junior Championships last weekend in Gudauri, Georgia, but a jaw injury kept him out. Swain, 17, of Kingfield, will compete at the FIS Ski Cross World Junior Championships from April 13-15 in Fjäll, Sweden.

“I’m really excited to be back at this event,” said Swain, who competed at the world championships last year in Italy. “It’s definitely a really big deal and one of the biggest races of the season. I’m just excited, feeling prepared and ready to go out and ski my best.”

Both athletes are having standout years in their sports. Swain competed in the ski cross — a multi-skier race down a course featuring big-air jumps and high-banked turns — at the Youth Olympic Games in January in Gangwon, South Korea. She finished ninth in the individual ski cross event, and seventh in the team event. Swain has also been competing in the NorAm Cup — an FIS series hosted in the United States and Canada — and earned a third-place finish March 16 at the Steamboat Ski and Resort in Colorado. The NorAm is considered an early stepping stone for World Cup competition.

“These big events are just really cool experiences,” Swain said. “They just open your eyes to a bigger scale of racing, and it’s really cool to be part of something like that. I’m just really happy to be where I’ve been and to be a part of these events. It’s awesome.”

Pare competes in the snowboard cross — a race that features four to six snowboarders steamrolling down a course with various turns and jumps. He’s been racing in the SBX World Cup, which is considered one of the highest levels of competition in the sport. Last month, Pare was named the FIS Snowboard Cross Men’s Rookie of the Year. Last June, Pare was named to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard development team.

Kingfield resident Maggie Swain is competing in the FIS Ski Cross World Junior Championships from April 13-15 in Sweden. Photo provided by Carrabassett Valley Academy

Both athletes have also suffered some recent setbacks.

Swain is gaining her confidence back after suffering a concussion during a recent crash at an event last year.

“I got super concussed and broke my nose, my face was super swollen,” Swain said. “That was a pretty bad one. … I’ve definitely faced challenges since that crash, it’s created some sort of a mental block a bit. It’s just kind of in my subconscious, just because it was a painful and scary experience, because it involved my head. I was definitely a bit scared to go back to the mountain, but I did, I skied the race and created a new narrative and it felt good to do that.”

Pare, meanwhile, recently suffered a broken jaw during a training session in Austria. The injury required Pare’s jaw to be wired shut, forcing him to be on a liquid diet. Pare just recently had the wire removed.

“We were just out free riding and the fog was really thick,” he said. “I couldn’t see left, right, it all was kind of blended. All of a sudden, the ground dropped for me. I dropped 10 feet and took a knee to my chin, broke my jaw and bit through my tongue in two spots. … I’m all set now, but the first two weeks were rough. I was wired shut and on a liquid diet. Until you actually have to eat a liquid diet, you don’t really understand what a liquid diet is. There’s liquid food, but you still can’t get everything down.”

Still, Pare — who took up snowboarding at 9-years-old — said he was happy with how his season has gone.

“Coming into the year, none of this was in the plans,” he said. “It’s all been just taking it one day at a time. Everything that’s happened has been amazing, and I never would have guessed this would have happened. I’m just kind of going along for the ride. … It’s an adrenaline rush, there’s not another feeling that I can put with it when you’re racing down a course, next to two other people. Sometimes it’s three people, side by side, and you’re going 30, 40, 50 miles per hour, hitting jumps. It’s just a battle all the way through until you cross the finish line. The adrenaline in the (starting) gate until you cross the finish line (is huge). The highs are very high, the lows are very low. You just go along with it. But it’s a crazy sport.”

Swain, who has been skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Carrabassett Valley since she was 2, got into ski cross seven years ago.

“Racing down the course with three other people, it’s more motivating and keeps the sport more interesting,” Swain said. “Just to be directly skiing against someone, it definitely pushes you more than (skiing alone)… It’s just a huge adrenaline rush, really.

“I have had instances where it can be distracting racing against others while also being aware of your surroundings,” Swain continued. “I definitely have to go into (a race) with my own game plan. Sometimes you have to adjust (on the fly) with what other people are doing, but also just focusing on my line and what I need to do.”

Pare and Swain both say they refuse to let their recent injuries prevent them chasing down their dreams of one day qualifying for the winter Olympics.

“(The long term goal) would be to take a World Cup spot. The ultimate goal would be Olympics,” Swain said. “I feel like it’s always been (a goal) that I feel like would be amazing, but I feel like it’s become more of a real aspiration in the past couple of years.”

“The goal is to just be the best there is, I’m in this to be better than anyone else who’s ever done it,” Pare added. “The Olympic qualifiers start next year, and the (Winter) Olympics are in two years. That’s the next goal. I was feeling the best I ever felt (before the injury), everything was just clicking on the board.”

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