“I said, ‘Yes, I want it,'” Waspi said in English.
She took to the slopes like a local Vermont ski bird, showing promise enough to convince Erez Foundation volunteers like Pesaro to invest in her potential. They liked that Waspi wanted to be on the mountain, no matter how terrible the conditions were, and they noticed something else.
“She wasn’t afraid of speed at all,” said Pesaro, who helped teach Waspi how to ski. “We thought she had potential. And Shayna got a little lost in her Israeli life. I knew from my experience as an athlete that it can be very important to get into a program that requires discipline while doing what you love.”
Waspi traveled the slopes of Europe when Mount Hermon was bare and then spent a month in Banff, Canada for high-level training. But a broken bone in her amputated leg cut short that trip, and she returned to Israel, still hoping to return to Banff after her recovery. It was only two years into her skiing career, but then the pandemic hit and Canada was no longer an option for her.
So instead, Waspi went to the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Winter Park, Colorado, to train with Scott Olson. She started racing and performed surprisingly well for someone with her limited experience while still keeping the rules of her faith, including wearing a skirt. She even launched a new trend at Winter Park.
A couple ski team from Chile also trained at Winter Park and one of the Chilean coach’s daughters really liked Waspi’s skirt. One day, the girl wore one of hers on the slopes and gave Waspi a drawing she had drawn of Waspi’s fiery red hair flying behind her as she raced down the mountain in a skirt.