Few action sports athletes know as well as Mike Schultz what it takes to win—how much it depends on mental and emotional strength as much as, sometimes more than, physical strength.
Schultz was a motocross and snowmobile racer at the height of his abilities in 2008 when he suffered a knee injury that resulted in the amputation of his left leg above the knee. Re-learning how to walk using a prosthetic was the baseline for Schultz; he wanted to return to competition, better than ever.
The rigors of competing in his chosen sports were mismatched with the standard prosthetic Schultz was using, and he quickly learned that to compete at his highest level, he would need to build his own.
He did—what he termed Moto Knee and Versa Foot—and founded a company, BioDapt, to manufacture them widely once he realized how badly adaptive sports needed higher-performing gear. He also learned how to snowboard in 2009—after his accident—and has since competed in two Olympics (PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022) and racked up 18 World Cup wins.
Schultz competes in the SB-LL1 class, or athletes who have a significant impairment to one leg, such as amputation above the knee (as Schultz does) or a significant combined impairment in two legs.
Now, most of his competitors are also using BioDapt equipment. Approximately 30 out of 42 athletes on the World Cup circuit right now in the men’s and women’s lower limb classes (LL1 and LL2) use Schultz’s prosthetics, though not all of the 42 athletes are amputees.
At Pyeongchang 2018, 15 athletes from six countries used BioDapt equipment, resulting in 11 medals—including Schultz’s gold in snowboard cross and silver in banked slalom.
The number of athletes had risen to 26 from 11 countries by Beijing 2022, where Schultz took silver in snowboard cross.
There’s no question that Schultz and other BioDapt athletes’ success at these Games has created an association in people’s minds between the equipment and snowboarding, but that’s far from its only—or even primary—use.
“A lot of people see BioDapt on TV with the Paralympics and think of it as a snowboarding leg, but that’s just one of the several uses for our gear,” Schultz said.
The most common use of BioDapt equipment isn’t actually snowboarding—it’s gym and fitness activities, like CrossFit and strength training. The next highest-use group is snowsports, then motocross, wakeboarding and surfing.
Schultz also works with military channels like Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Brooke Army Medical Center and VA clinics to fit gear for service members who have been injured in the line of duty.
The Moto Knee and Versa Foot Schultz initially designed are now in their second generation. The equipment has become lighter and is better able to be tuned by athletes looking to hone in their performance.
And that’s where Schultz the competitor can bump up against Schultz the engineer, the business owner, the mentor. At every World Cup event, athletes who use BioDapt gear turn to Schultz—sometimes in the staging area right before the race begins—for advice and assistance in fine-tuning their gear.
Schultz always obliges—even goes out of his way to make himself available—and then lines right up next to these athletes, hoping his training and his experience will pay off and allow him to edge them out for a podium spot.
Every lower-limb amputee on the U.S. Para Snowboard Team uses BioDapt gear; fellow U.S. teammate Noah Elliott is Schultz’s direct competitor in the SB-LL1 class.
In the snowboard cross World Cup at Lenk, Switzerland, on January 23, Schultz and Elliott both landed on the podium—with Schultz edging out his 27-year-old U.S. teammate for second place. (The time trials results stood as final, as the final was canceled for weather.)
At the snowboard cross race in Lenk on January 24, Elliott took first place in the final and Schultz took third. Schultz was the top qualifier by a full second and had a bad start in the final, but pushed through to land on the podium.
It meant two podiums in two days for Schultz—an affirmation of his drive to keep competing.
“I’m thinking about the bigger picture of it; yes, I’m a competitor, and I want to beat everybody I’m lining up against, but my competitive career has a timeline on it,” Schultz said. “I want to make a bigger mark on the sport and help progress everybody’s performance. That’s a huge win; that’s gonna stand a lot longer than me getting gold, silver, bronze, whatever the case.’
“It is tough knowing that I’m putting effort into making my competitors faster,” Schultz added with a chuckle. “So that comes down to me as an athlete having to work harder and be more prepared than they are and just perform the best I can when it matters.”
Schultz was contemplating retiring from competition following Beijing 2022, especially since he has a fulfulling career ahead of him as the driving force behind BioDapt.
But “Monster Mike” knows he’s not finished.
“I work with so many of the athletes worldwide; that in itself keeps me engaged in working with adaptive sports, specifically snowboarding,” Schultz said. “The way Beijing ended, I wasn’t satisfied on multiple levels. I’m gonna continue with the competition side and continue to work with the athletes with BioDapt.”
If Schultz meets his goal of qualifying for the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics, he will be 44 by the Games’ Opening Ceremony. He is already the oldest U.S. snowboarder on the World Cup circuit.
“I have to work harder for it for sure, because it’s just a fact that things don’t work as quick and as good as they used to, and we have some younger athletes that are very capable on the race course as far as technique,” Schultz said.
“You throw in that young energy, it’s hard to keep up with for sure. On the flip side, all the years of my competitive career stemming back from my motocross and snowmobile racing and snowboarding career, I’ve learned so much. I can use that wisdom I’ve accrued over the years and make up for that young energy some of these other athletes have.”
