NEWPORT NEWS— Joe Pleban, a Christopher Newport University alum, earned the opportunity to represent the U.S. at the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games. Now back in the states, Pleban sat down with WYDaily to reflect on his experience.
Pleban grew up on the slopes, snowboarding in Virginia and Maryland. His family would go to Vermont twice a year and that’s where snowboarding became a huge part of his life.
“Snowboarding was one of many, many sports that I loved and enjoyed but it was definitely my favorite sport,” Pleban said.
One thing that captured him from the beginning was the constant change.
“Snowboarding is one of those sports that is just always changing. There is always a new run, always a new trick to master, and I loved being challenged in that way,” Pleban said.
Then came the accidents over a period of time.
“My left ankle was always kind of my bad ankle. I sprained it while swimming, just goofy stuff like that. It worked fine, it was just always a nagging ankle. I used to compete in wakeboarding and the day after my high school graduation, I was trying out a new trick and ended up coming down weird and breaking my left ankle. They put a cast on it, gave me a couple weeks to get better on crutches, but it never really healed up,” Pleban explained.
Doctors then looked at Pleban’s ankle through an arthroscopy. They found thousands of tiny tumors throughout his ankle joint and Pleban was diagnosed with Tenosynovial Giant Cell Tumor (TGCT).
“I came out of the test and the doctors told me to get ready to have a desk job. They were basically saying that I would lose the ability to use my ankle and that joint and eventually lose the ability to be active,” Pleban added.
As an extremely active 18 year old, the news was devastating.
“My plan was to fight it as much as possible. I fully believed that we could find alternative solutions. I went through a couple surgeries to clear out the tumors, but TGCT is a very aggressive disease where the tumors will grow back in six months,” Pleban said.
While a student at Christopher Newport, Pleban often traveled down the street to Riverside Regional Medical Center and received radiation treatment. The radiation actually killed the tumors, but what was left now was no cartilage in the joint. It caused severe arthritis to that point that he was walking with a cane as a freshman in college.
After losing the ability to participate in many of his favorite sports, the one he adapted to the most was snowboarding. Through cinching the snowboard boot tight enough, the tightened boot acted as an ankle brace. However, on one trip to Vermont, he tried to snowboard and ended up in excruciating pain.
“My ankle wasn’t working and that was when I knew that I needed a drastic change in order to really get back to an active lifestyle. The doctors came up with a solution to screw all the bones together in his ankle so they wouldn’t rub against each other. Doctors advised that he wouldn’t be able to move his foot, but he wouldn’t have the pain.
“My response to that was ‘what sports can I play with an ankle fusion?’ and the doctors said ‘none, you are done playing sports for the rest of your life’,” Pleban shared.
After digesting the doctors advice, Pleban began watching the Winter X Games where he saw athletes competing with prosthetics.
“As soon as I saw that, I just said, let’s cut this thing off then,” he said.
He found a surgeon that performed an elective amputation and officially lost his left foot in 2014.
“After that surgery, I came out of it knowing that I was going to become an elite snowboarder with a prosthetic,” Pleban said.
He joined an adaptive snowboarding club as soon as he was cleared by doctors and before he knew it, he was ready to compete again.
“I was cruising around and I knew that I was going to go to a competition and show these other one legged dudes what I could do,” Pleban shared with a laugh.
After competing at Copper Mountain in the adaptive races, he immediately realized what it was going to take to become an elite snowboarder.
“I had this huge helping of humble pie. I don’t even think I placed in the top 10. It was a huge eyeopener. They were totally on a different level and that’s where it clicked that I couldn’t just walk on and make the team. It took so much training and commitment to get to that level,” Pleban says.
He moved to Colorado to train in the winter with Adaptive Action Sports at Copper Mountain with hope to make the U.S. national team and eventually, the Paralympic Games.
In 2019, Pleban was named to the national team, just a year after the Pyeongchang Olympics and Paralympic Games.
“I was named to the team as a development athlete. I was part of the national team but not as a fully-funded member. Either way, I still spent time with the same club and going to the same races and I’d look up at the national team with the idea that the national team was the team to make,” he shared.
Finally, Pleban was named to the National Team in 2019.
From there, Pleban competed in World Championships all around the world.
“It’s exciting to be at a World Championship, but truly everyone is looking towards the Games. Of course you want to medal at a World Championship, but you want to get to the Paralympics, that’s like THE event to be at,” he said.
In 2022, Pleban found himself left off the Beijing Winter Olympics. However, committed to his training, he immediately decided to go for Milan in 2026.
At the final competition of the 2026 season, Pleban officially got the call that he was going to Milan.
“I was at an urgent care clinic, getting an injury looked at. At the same time they called my name to be seen, the call came from my coach telling me that I made it. All the staff gave me this look and didn’t understand. When I told them that I had just gotten the call that I was named to the team, the whole entire clinic was congratulating me and all the people there were so awesome about it,” he recalls.
From March 6-15, Pleban, his wife, and his daughter were in Italy while he lived out one of his biggest dreams.
“My roommate, who was my best friend on the team, we had a blast. We were just trying on all of our gear, strutting down the hallway in all the different outfits. We were taking pictures to send to our partners. It was wild,” Pleban said.
When it came time to compete, Pleban had two shots to medal; in the banked slalom, and the snowboard cross. He earned an eighth place finish in snowboard cross and an 11th place finish in the banked slalom competition.
“Eighth and 11th place at the highest level of competition you can ever be at, that’s really good. As a competitor, you want to do better. You look back and you replay every run in your head. The podium is the ultimate feather in your cap. With these games, the goal I set for myself was just to get there. I went all out and really what it comes down to is that I’m really proud of the way I rode with that level of pressure. I’ve always said that your ride and your timing is your level of how good you do, but what place you get is just about how good everyone else around you is,” Pleban shared.
With finishes off the podium, Pleban said it has fueled his fire to go for the 2030 French Alps Olympic Games.
“If you are going to give me four years of training and the knowledge to know what it feels like to be at a Paralympic Games, that means in four years, we’re going to be looking pretty dang good,” Pleban said.
To learn more about Pleban and his career, visit joepleban.com.