Ayden Uhlir – Dressage
This back-to-back gold medalist has given up a lot to pursue her dressage dreams. The Texas native chose an online high school path in seventh grade, then moved to Washington State the summer before her senior year to live near her coaches. It’s been small stuff, like avoiding risky runs for fear of getting injured on family snowboarding vacations. And it’s been big stuff, like hearing herself described as standoff-ish, even arrogant, over decisions to skip social opportunities to better focus on riding.
Only those who don’t know Ayden would describe her as anything other than outgoing and friendly. She’s energetic and enthusiastic to the nth degree, as evidenced by her spontaneous out-gate dance after hearing the 71.605% that took her to the top of this year’s Young Rider individual podium in Lexington. But she understands, more than some thrice her 18 years, that success and sacrifice are two sides of the same coin.
“In order to focus I have found that I have to make the space around me emptier,” she explains. People outside the sport have questioned her and her family’s decision to “put all my eggs in one basket,” she acknowledges. “For me the decisions were no brainers. I want this life. I have never wanted anything else. To make sacrifices to achieve my dream and to feel daily the wholeness and contentment I feel when I am in the saddle doesn’t seem like a sacrifice.”