Team Vision4Gold

Danelle D’Aquanni Umstead, a visually impaired alpine ski racer. Husband Rob Umstead is her guide and they are Team Vision4Gold. Named to the 2009/2010 US Adaptive Ski Team. Currently Team Vision4Gold is training for this season World Cups, and the 2010 paralympic games. Their goal is to bring home a gold medal for The United States.

Danelle D’Aquanni Umstead

Danelle is a wife, mother, and visually impaired ski racer. She is going blind to a disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa. Recently she has lost most of her peripheral vision to this disease. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a group of inherited diseases that damage the light-sensitive rods and cones located in the retina, the back part of our eyes. Rods, which provide side peripheral and night vision, are affected more than the cones which provide color and clear central. Unfortunately Danelle has no central vision or depth perception in both eyes caused by early onset macular degeneration. This makes her situation a lot worse than most. There is no chance of return vision, nor is there a cure. Danelle spent many years feeling sorry for herself, not having a sense of worth to her life. She truly believed without sight she could not do anything.

In 2000 she started adaptive skiing with her father as her first guide in Northern New Mexico. It opened her eyes to a world of opportunities. In 2001 moved from Plano, TX to Taos, NM. Now she could be closer to Taos Ski Valley and her family too.  She worked at the mountain so she could ski more (with her father, friends, and other employees guiding her). Danelle said “skiing has given me new meaning and value to life, in more ways than the sport itself”. Despite her progressively worsening vision Danelle wanted to go steeper and faster the more she skied.

Life did a full circle for Danelle, despite the constant struggles that every blind/visually impaired person goes through on a daily basis – Her life was just beginning. Danelle met her best friend/future husband Rob at Taos Ski Valley after a day of skiing with a friend.

He was offered a coaching job in Park City, Utah, and asked Danelle to go with him. There she started training with the National Ability Center Ski team, going through several guides.

In Danelle’s first full season of racing in Park City, Utah she competed in Slalom and Giant Slalom. At the 2008 US Disabled Nationals, Danelle and part time guide Sally Tauber won Bronze medalist’s in both events.

One of the biggest struggles with any VI skier is to find a full time guide, and this is a major component to success. A VI ski racer can only make it so far without a guide who can commit to training, traveling and competing full time. To compete at the highest level Danelle needed to have a full time guide with a vested interest in her and the sport.

Rob, Danelle’s husband started guiding/ training with her full time in the summer of 2008. They competed 2008-2009 with unbelievable results. Team Vision4Gold is going to the 2010 Paralympic’s as one of the top contenders. See the result page for rankings and their results.

Danelle now believes without vision you can do anything, it is just done differently.

Rob Umstead

Rob has been involved in the sport of ski racing for 23 year., He started as a young athlete in Vermont and moved on to be a college racer for the University of Massachusetts. Since college, Rob has been a race coach in New Hampshire, New Mexico, Utah and summers on Mt. Hood Oregon.

Rob watched his wife struggle for consistency in a guide in her first few seasons. In the 2008/09 season he decided to be part of her” vision” and committed himself to guiding her full time. He enjoys being back on the athlete side of the race course and thrives on the training and the challenges that go into being a successful Visually Impaired (VI) team.