Elisha was born without her right hand, which came as a surprise to her parents. As a child, she would try and water her arm, thinking it would eventually grow. She got her first prosthetic arm at the age of three and was teased a lot in elementary school. Her parents didn’t treat her differently and encouraged her to try new things. She waterskied from the age of nine and excelled at soccer from an early age.
After graduating early at 17, Elisha went to play soccer at BYU and study pre-med. After a year, she wanted to specialize, so she transferred to a school with a radiology department and graduated at the age of 20. Post college, she worked on call with Level One Trauma at UC Davis Medical Center. She spent 15 years there in the operating room. On the side, she did orthopedic research for a few organizations and universities. During that time, she got married and had two children - now 11 and 13 years old.
Elisha experienced various trials, including an almost deadly car accident and thyroid cancer. Ultimately, those things motivated her to pretty much quit everything and pursue what make her happy. She had always loved water skiing and started pursuing that again. Four years ago, she made the decision to pursue professional water skiing.
There are three events in adaptive water skiing and Elisha competes in all three: Slalom - where skiers must weave between six buoys, Trick - a combination of moves behind the wakes and in the air, and Jumping - where skiers are launches from a ramp and try to stay in the air as long as possible.
After getting back into competition water skiing, Elisha made Team USA and traveled to Norway in 2019 for the World Championships, taking bronze in Slalom, silver in Trick, silver in Jump, silver overall, and gold with Team USA. Right now in the US, Elisha holds records for all three categories and was most recently named the 2020 USA Adaptive Female of the Year and is considered the best female one handed skier in the world.
Her next competition is slated for June 6th, 2021, a month and a half post Hyper program. Elisha wants to use her time at ATF to push herself to the limits as an athlete - mind, body, and spirit. Physically she wants to get herself into top shape, but also will have a huge focus on mentality. She wants her mind to be her strongest weapon and is especially looking forward to tapping into that during the 10 days at Hyper.
