Snowboard cross champion Evan Strong made history after an inspiring performance in Sochi this winter, taking home gold and becoming the first elite para-athlete to appear on the iconic Wheaties box. Now Strong is going to be the Grand Marshal in the Fourth of July parade in Nevada City.

The parade will be Friday, July 4 at 11 a.m., which will include about 75 entries.

The festive parade comes down Broad Street in Nevada City.  Parade-goers are advised to bring lawn chairs and arrive early to find a good vantage point.

Strong, a native of Hawaii, resides in Nevada City. His family owns The Fix for Foodies restaurant in the historic district.

The 27-year-old won the inaugural Winter Paralympics men’s snowboard cross gold medal in Sochi, Russia.

Evan Strong offered a "learn to repair your skateboard" workshop and an inspirational program on achieving your goals at EntreAmigos center in San Pancho, Nayarit, Mexico on June 10, 2014.

link: http://entreamigos.org.mx/ and https://www.facebook.com/entreamigos.centrocomunitario

US Paralympians Evan Strong and Heidi Jo Duce each took home national titles on Wednesday (9 April) at the US Paralympics Snowboard Cross National Championships in Copper Mountain, Colorado.

The event was the finale of an exciting season for US snowboarders, one that saw snowboard cross featured at the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games for the first time in history.

The men’s results mirrored the US podium sweep from Sochi 2014, as Strong, Mike Shea and Keith Gabel took first, second and third, respectively. In Sochi, the three finished in the same order.

It was a close race as usual for the three Paralympic medallists. Strong and Shea, who were separated by just half a second in Sochi, finished with combined times that were a little more than a second apart.

“I’m always stoked to see my boys doing well, and I think they feel the same way as well,” Gabel said of placing third behind his teammates. “We battled for one-two-three, same as in Sochi. If I’m ever going to miss a spot, I’d rather it go to those guys than anyone else.”

Navy veteran Tyler Burdick, who took eighth at the Sochi Games, finished in fourth overall.

On the women’s side, it was Duce who took the top spot. The victory earned her back-to-back national championship titles, as she edged US teammate Amy Purdy at the 2013 edition of the event.

Purdy, the 2014 Paralympic bronze medallist, was absent from the race as she is competing on the TV show Dancing with the Stars. Still, Duce’s competition was in top form. Nicole Roundy, who finished eighth in Sochi, took second place while newcomer Brenna Huckabee rounded out the podium in third.

Duce finished an uncharacteristic fifth at the Sochi Games and said she was happy to be back on the podium to close out the competition season.

“It was nice to have a good race after not doing too well in Sochi. I was glad to be ending the season on positive note,” Duce said. “It was soft because it was spring riding, but I tend to have the best results on Copper courses. They build really good courses.”

Cristina Albert, who earned a career-high fourth-place in Sochi, finished fifth at nationals.

Next up, the US national team will head straight into a training camp in mid-May followed by summer on-snow training in the southern hemisphere in preparation for the 2014-15 season.

Evan Strong has zipped through the past few weeks the way he tears down a mountain. At high speed, everything is just a bit blurry.

“Life has gone crazy,” he said, laughing. “It’s gone so big and I’m still digesting the experience. There was just so much energy surrounding the Games and it’s just … Things have been speeding up like a foot on the gas pedal, and I’ve just been holding on and enjoying the ride.”

Strong was speaking after leaving the White House Thursday following a day spent with about 200 other Paralympic and Olympic athletes meeting President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Two days earlier, the town of Nevada City, Calif., had turned out for a special celebration and parade in honor of Strong, a resident, who won a gold medal in Sochi and led a U.S. men’s sweep in the Paralympic debut of snowboard cross.

After returning to the United States as the only American individual gold-medal winner at Sochi, Strong spent about a week in New York making media appearances. He also learned he’ll be on the front of a cereal boxes that comes out soon.

“It’s kind of like the American dream,” Strong said. “Win a gold medal and be so good to be put on the Wheaties box, so it’s definitely surreal.”

And his whirlwind adventure isn’t over. As Strong talked about Sochi and his post-Games activities, he was being driven through Washington, D.C., to the airport for a flight to Colorado, where he’ll compete this week in the national championships at Copper Mountain. Even though he’d only had two days of boarding at Lake Tahoe since Sochi, he wasn’t sweating the national championships.

In fact, after the long grind of preparation for Sochi and the pressures of performing in the Games, he was looking forward to competing at Copper Mountain.

“I definitely want to go out there and ride fast and ride strong, but it’s also a much more relaxed atmosphere,” he said. “So if you’re not at your peak performance, that’s OK, because you’re there to snowboard with your friends and have a good time.”

In Sochi, Strong, 27, did come up with a peak performance, holding off U.S. teammates and good friends Mike Shea and Keith Gabel in a tight contest in which Strong and Shea took turns in the lead until the final run.

“Being able to share the experience with them and be up on the podium with them and be able to have three American flags raised with the national anthem, it was an explosive experience,” Strong said. “Just amazing. I had so much fun.”

Then to get a chance to go to the White House to be honored with his fellow athletes by the president put a bow on the whole Paralympic experience.

“It was such an honor to be able to, for one, achieve a gold for the country, but to be able to bring it and share it with the president is an amazing thing,” said Strong, who lost his left leg below the knee following a motorcycle accident when he was 17. “It really felt like a great conclusion of being together with all your teammates, the Olympians and Paralympians, at the White House. That kind of acknowledgement brought if full circle.”

The celebration in Nevada City, too — where he lives with his wife, Mariah, and owns and operates a restaurant — was touching in a far more personal way.

As he walks around his town, people greet him and he feels their support, he says. They watched the Games and cheered him on, and he says his friends and neighbors always have been supportive of him. Even his restaurant, The Fix For Foodies, has been packed with well-wishers lately.

“They’ve all been so proud and so happy to see me, and so supportive,” he said. “It’s given me so much good energy. It was good to be able to bring that energy back home to share it with my community.”

Though he’s enjoyed all the attention he’s received and the places he’s gone and people he’s met, he says being home to rest for a few days — and sleeping in his own bed again — has been his favorite recent experience.

“I’ve been running off bare-minimum sleep the last couple of weeks, so being able to get that sort of restful, restorative quiet time at home has been just so nice,” he said.

After the national championships, he’ll get a chance to return home and get back to normal. But in four years, it’s possible he could be in line for more excitement. He has his eyes on the next Paralaympic Winter Games in South Korea in 2018.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I’m having a lot of fun riding my board, getting faster, getting stronger, getting fitter, so as long as I’m still having fun and learning, I’m still going to be around. I definitely want to be around for another Games.”

Doug Williams covered three Olympic Games for two Southern California newspapers and was the Olympic editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune. He has written for USParalympics.org since 2011 as a freelance contributor on behalf ofRed Line Editorial, Inc.

I am so honored to award my coach, Miah Wheeler, with the Order of Ikkos award, given to a coach that has helped athletes reach their Paralympic dreams. Thank you Miah, for giving me the tools I needed to win. I hope this winter was just the first step in a great and successful journey together.

Order of Ikkos is a medallion award symbolizing excellence in coaching made available to all individual U.S. Olympic and Paralympic medalists as representing the athletes' achievement as an Olympic or Paralympic Medalist, in recognition of countless hours training America’s athletes to achieve the dream of an Olympic medal. Each U.S. medal-winning team receives ONE Order of Ikkos medal to present to a single coach. The medalists can present the award to one coach or mentor. The award is presented as part of each U.S. Olympic medalist's victory tour. The victory tour takes place 24–36 hours after a U.S. athlete wins an Olympic or Paralympic medal. The award was established by the United States Olympic Committee prior to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and continued at the 2010 Olympic Games.

The Order of Ikkos name comes from Ikkos of Tarentum (Taranto), who was first Olympic coach in ancient Greece. It provides the opportunity for athletes to recognize their coaches for their leadership and inspiration to achieve world-class performance.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Top performances throughout March earned Sarah Hammer (Temecula, Calif.) and Paralympic snowboarder Evan Strong (Maui, Hawaii) Athlete of the Month recognition, while the 2014 U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey Team received Team of the Month honors, the United States Olympic Committee announced today.

Hammer won her seventh career world championship gold medal at the 2014 UCI Track World Championships, held March 2 in Cali, Colombia. The reigning women’s omnium world champion won three of the six events outright to take home her second consecutive rainbow jersey in the event. She also claimed the silver medal in the individual pursuit. 

Strong captured the gold medal and led a U.S. podium sweep in the Paralympic debut of men’s snowboardcross at the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Strong turned in a winning time of 51.62 in the final run to earn the top podium spot by less than half of a second. 

The U.S. men’s team became the first to capture back-to-back Paralympic sled hockey gold medals at the Sochi Games. Team USA won two of its three preliminary games before defeating Canada, 3-0, in the semifinal and Russia, 1-0, in the gold-medal game.

Para-Nordic skier Oksana Masters (Louisville, Ky.) finished runner-up and freestyle skier Hannah Kearney (Norwich, Vt.) claimed third in the female vote. On the men’s side, alpine skier Ted Ligety (Park City, Utah) and sled hockey player Declan Farmer (Tampa, Fla.) earned second and third place. USA Track & Field’s men’s 4x400-meter team finished second, while the U.S. women’s national saber team finished third in the team category.

Each National Governing Body may nominate one female, one male and one team per discipline. A voting panel selects the winners from the pool of nominees with online fan voting via Twitter accounting for 10 percent of the total vote.

FEMALE 
1. Sarah Hammer, Cycling
2. Oksana Masters, Para-Nordic Skiing
3. Hannah Kearney, Freestyle Skiing

MALE
1. Evan Strong, Paralympic Snowboarding
2. Ted Ligety, Alpine Skiing
3. Declan Farmer, Sled Hockey

TEAM
1. 2014 U.S. Paralympic Team, Sled Hockey
2. Men’s 4x400-meter team, Track & Field
3. U.S. women’s national saber team, Fencing

http://www.aroundtherings.com/site/A__46653/Title__USOC-Announces-March-Athlete-and-Team-of-the-Month-Honors/292/Articles