By Hub City Times staff

MARSHFIELD – Neillsville’s Daina Shilts competed in the Special Olympics Unified Snowboarding X Games in Aspen, CO, on Jan. 23, and won gold.

This is Shilts’ sixth time competing at the X Games. Shilts has participated in each of the Unified Snowboarding events at the X Games. In addition to Unified Snowboarding, Unified Skiing will make its debut at the 2020 X Games.

Teams are comprised of one professional action sports athlete, including X Games and Olympic medalists, and one Special Olympics action sports athlete for a total of ten, two-person teams in snowboarding and six, two-person teams in skiing.

Shilts was teamed with athlete Mike Schultz of St. Cloud, MN. Schultz is an above-the-knee amputee who created his own knee and prosthetic leg to accommodate his activities. He is a three-sport X Games athlete with the most adaptive gold medals in X Games history – eight between SnoCross Adaptive and Moto X Racing Adaptive.

Each of the team members take one run on each of the two competition courses, with the professional athletes racing against one another and the Special Olympics athletes racing one another. The combined best times of each team will determine the results.

Both Shilts and Schultz won their heats and combined their scores to take home the gold medal.