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When Alpine Canada announced its team for the 2025/26 season, the medal-winning teenager made his debut with the organization after an impressive rookie year in the FIS.
IN official mailPublished Oct. 3, athletes from across Canada and a number of disciplines are listed on the page in alphabetical order by name. Below is one of the newest members of the team and a force to watch this year: Samuel Peters, a 17-year-old paraskier from Kelowna.
But his path to becoming the youngest member of the team this season and a multiple podium finisher did not start on the mountain. It all started elsewhere, at the age of six, with a chance invitation to learn to ski.
“I was at the grocery store with my mom,” Peters recalled briefly and bluntly to CBC Sports.
“A Powderhounds volunteer asked if I wanted to try it and we said, 'Oh yeah, we'd love to.'
The adaptive Powderhounds program, an initiative of the nonprofit People in Motion, gives people the opportunity to learn to navigate the slopes, regardless of age or disability.
With the help of a program at Big White Ski Resort, Peters eventually became comfortable with skiing, mastering his equipment and the intricacies of the mountains as he entered his teens.
Having learned from former Team Canada skier and adaptive skills coach Sarah Morris-Probert, his coach introduced him to cross-country skiing when he was ready to take off.
WATCH | Peters on the move as Big White's first paraski ambassador:
Soon dreams of Olympic gold took hold and racing became Peters' top priority.
In 2022, at the age of 15, he made his skiing debut. A year later, he graduated from high school and began cross-country skiing full-time. Then, at 17, he became an FIS rookie, competing around the world in slalom, giant slalom and super-G.
At the FIS International Paralympic competitions in Park City, Utah and Winter Park, Colorado, he reached speeds of over 100 km/h and reached the podium seven times. In two months he won four golds.
Last season, Peters, often the youngest athlete in alpine skiing competing against Paralympians with decades of experience and other skiers with distinguished careers, remained unfazed.
“Being one of the youngest on the track was really cool. I loved it,” he said.
Quietly confident, Peters knows the impact his performance can have. Having trained five days a week for the 2025/26 season, he is confident in his abilities and chances of getting home equipment during this year's season.
“I do what I know I can do,” he said. “If I can focus on this, then at some point I can get on the podium.”
After the Paralympians finished fourth at the Southern Hemisphere Cup in Chile in September this year – the first time the Alpine pair have attended the competition – the 17-year-old will head to Resterhöhe, Austria, from December 6-7 as the season approaches. There's something that could give him a boost this year as he looks to top last year's results: new Tessier ski gear.
“This new setup is essentially like a race car,” he explained. “The other one was like an ordinary, ordinary car.”
With new equipment and a season planned for Milan Cortina 2026 in March, Peters is confident in what he can do on the slopes and is optimistic that he will be in Italy for his first Paralympic Winter Games.
“The big hope is to go to the Games and finish all my races,” he said. “And also gain that experience for the next Games.”
That's because Peters is confident of competing in the long term, with Milan Cortina another stop along the way as he continues to make a name for himself in the 2025/26 season.
“[Milano Cortina] will definitely give me more confidence ahead of the 2030 Games,” he said.
“I’m ready to go and do this for a while.”
