David Chávez and Jonathan Arias grew up in different parts of crime-ridden El Salvador in the 2010s, but met the same brutal fate.
At the age of 14, Arias was involved in an altercation between rival gangs, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Chávez was also 14 years old when he was shot and paralyzed during a robbery by gang members.
El Salvador at this time offered few opportunities for young people, even for those who had everything going for them. For two teenagers who could not use their legs, the future was especially bleak.
Fast forward to 2026. El Salvador is competing in the Winter Paralympics for the first time in history, and it’s Chávez, 27, and Arias, 28, who are on fire – in two masks. They won the Para cross-country skiing event even though they come from a nation that does not see snow.
How they got here is an extraordinary story of human tenacity and determination, of two men who dedicated themselves to a sport they knew nothing about and relied on new training to reach the top. It wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for a dedicated group of supporters, including two American sports stars, around them building a training center for disabled athletes in a coastal town once plagued by violence.
“The story of these athletes, emerging from the background of gang violence – is an inspiration in itself,” said Salvador “Chacha” Salguero, president of the El Salvador Snow and Ice Federation. “And now they are making history.”
The event that improved Chávez’s life happened in the capital of San Salvador on a day that entered his mind: Jan. 7, 2015.
Chávez was helping his aunt move furniture into her house when, he said, members of Barrio 18 robbed him at gunpoint and demanded he join the gang. He refused and left, but at least one of the gang members opened fire, hitting him in the spine.
He said: “I couldn’t stand up. “My legs stopped moving.”
He spent 22 days in the hospital before returning home, unable to see a future worth living.
“I couldn’t accept myself,” Chávez said. “I cried about everything I saw.”
But rehab opened his eyes to how he could function using only his upper body. He went on to join a wheelchair basketball team and met a player who became a fast friend: Jonathan Arias.
Arias was shot in the coastal town of La Libertad in 2011. It was a time when two gangs in El Salvador, Barrio18 and MS-13, ruled the streets and shootouts were common.
“I was there at the worst time,” Arias said.
He spent about a month in the hospital and then spent a year recovering at home, rarely going out. Painful thoughts consumed him.
“I will not be able to work … I will not be able to achieve anything … My life will remain in bed until God takes me.”
The possibility of playing sports, an idea presented to him during the renaissance, provided a glimmer of hope.
Arias moved to San Salvador and played on a basketball team with Chávez for a few years.
But then the epidemic struck and he returned to his hometown of La Libertad. To support his family, he sold shaved snow from his wheelchair, parked on the side of the dirt road.
It was there on a hot day in June 2021 that he met an American named Rob Powers, an encounter that would send his life on a completely different path.
‘The light went out’
Powers was an Army veteran based in Colorado who had coached the US Ski Team for 14 years. After retiring from the ski team, he created a program that brought former Olympic athletes, military veterans and others – who had suffered severe injuries and other serious obstacles – to remote US military bases to share messages of hope and resilience.
In 2010, a friend asked Powers if he could come to El Salvador to help the country’s Olympic committee. A friend was Sean Colgan, a member of the 1980 US Olympic rowing team who went on to launch a mineral trading company and become a foundation that supports sports programs, scientific research and a host of other causes around the world.
When he reached Powers, Colgan was coaching El Salvador’s Olympic rowing team.
“I dove and fell in love with the country,” Powers said.
He and Colgan eventually created ONETEAM El Salvador, which provided support and training to first responders, lifeguards and neglected youth.
Powers, who helped the country’s surf federation, was checking out the ONETEAM El Salvador site when he met Arias on the side of the road selling shaved ice treats, known as minutas, “for a buck.”
“The light went off,” Powers said.
What if he created a program to train Salvadoran youth with disabilities to surf?
And thus was born El Salvador’s Paralympic surfing program, with Arias as its first member.
