Kiana Clay: No Excuses

Words by Andrew Campo | Photography by Jimmy Bowron

I had just wrapped an hourlong interview with 25-year-old motocross racer and snowboard athlete Kiana Clay, and the emotion following our conversation was both complex and powerful. My heartstrings were ripping apart when hearing about her struggle, but her endless perseverance and positivity was so inspiring. 

After taking a few days to let things soak in, it finally hit me: I can’t tell you the full story because it’s far from over. However, what I can do is introduce you to an incredible young woman and talk about how she’s overcome adversity, with the hope that her experience can give you some perspective to throw your excuses out the window and be better in your own life.

Kiana Clay works as a graphic designer at a small print shop in Frisco, Colorado, living paycheck to paycheck. She grew up devoting most of her childhood to a life on two wheels with her father. She now spends most of her time preparing to represent the United States in the 2022 Paralympics in Beijing, China, in both boardercross and banked slalom events. She trains at Copper Mountain with the Adaptive Action Sports Team and is striving to be the first upper limb impairment female to represent the U.S. in the Paralympics. She is doing this all of her own accord, and she’s the last person to complain about the struggles life throws her way. Funding the road to Beijing and back is not cheap, and support at that level has yet to come to fruition for Kiana. But she has hope and wants nothing more than the opportunity to represent our country.

Kiana began riding motorcycles at age seven, after her parents brought home a Yamaha PW80. It wasn’t long after that before she began racing local events and eventually setting her sights on the Amateur National motocross calendar. She was obsessed with the thrill of speed and had found a true passion in racing motocross. Kiana was determined to become setting her sights on becoming one of the next top professional women in the sport.

On November 18, 2006, Kiana was racing at Freestone County Raceway in Wortham, Texas. It had rained the day before, so the track was muddy and deep. During practice, she crashed on the back side of the finish line jump as a result of her back tire sliding out. She was landed on by another rider who was close behind her, with the front end of the other racer’s bike landing directly on her neck, avulsing her nerves and resulting in a complex neck injury called brachial plexus. As she awoke from being knocked unconscious for roughly four minutes, Kiana noticed that she couldn’t move her arm whatsoever. After visiting three different hospitals, she finally received her diagnosis at Children’s Medical Center Dallas: full paralysis in her dominant right arm. 

“I will never forget waking up on the stretcher, trying to move all my limbs and realizing that I couldn’t feel or move my right arm. It was the most terrifying moment of my life,”

she recalls. “I had no idea how to react other than to scream. I will be honest, that first week, I never wanted to see a dirt bike again. I hated the idea of motocross and everything about it. It took away one of my limbs and made my life beyond challenging from that point on. Anger was all I felt.

“After some time, getting adapted to being disabled and grasping the hard truths of my new reality, my anger went away, and I started to miss racing. It’s all I wanted to do, despite my outcome. I tried out for everything you can think of in middle school and high school. I felt so out of place and unhappy being handicapped in everything I pursued. I thought, ‘I’m going to have to settle with this. This is my life now.’”

Kiana and her family set out to find a brachial plexus specialist in hopes of reconstructing nerves and giving her arm a chance to recover. Surgery to repair brachial plexus nerves should generally occur within six to seven months after the injury. Surgeries that occur later than that have lower success rates.  

Unfortunately, about a month after her racing injury, Kiana and her father were involved in a car accident. Their vehicle flipped multiple times after being struck by a drunk driver. Because of complications from that accident, she had now lost all chances of regaining use of her arm. Her dreams of racing to the top had come to an end, and doing the same things as before was no longer an option. But what she didn’t know at the time was that life had handed her a gift, although it did not come easy. 

“I remember after my wreck, back in middle school and high school, how much I hated taking photos with my arm showing because of how different it looked. Even wearing bikinis, T-shirts and tank tops where my arm showed, I felt beyond uncomfortable,” she says. “It was my biggest insecurity for a long time. Now, I embrace it and I love it because it makes me unique. Different is good. Can you imagine how boring the world would look if we all looked the same?”

About three years ago, her personal life took a huge turn, to the point where she has lost pretty much everything. Family issues arose, and Texas became a toxic place for her to live both mentally and physically. In search of new beginnings, Kiana visited Colorado for a mini vacation to snowboard and refocus. 

“I kept reflecting back to my parents and multiple doctors that kept telling me that I will never be in action sports, let alone race dirt bikes again. But one day I decided: It’s my life. I’ll make the call of what’s ‘impossible,’” Kiana says. “Fast-forward a few years, and here I am. I’m happy I chose to get back on the bike. I proved to myself what I am capable of, and better yet, I’ve been able to help people in my own unique way.

I’m no longer angry at the sport, but rather I am grateful. It has given me so much more opportunity and happiness than any desk job will ever give me.”

During that time, her current coach offered to train her full time and presented the opportunity to compete in the Paralympics and to chase the dream of competing as a professional athlete. She had zero desire to stay in Texas, so she packed her belongings and moved up to Silverthorne, Colorado, with only $180 to her name. There is a saying in Summit County, “You either have two houses or two jobs.” Kiana ended up getting three full-time jobs and trained full time while competing, traveling, and living either out of her truck or couchsurfing until she could afford decent housing.

Today, Kiana is fully independent and supports herself, working two full-time jobs and managing most of her training regimen herself. Kiana heads to the mountain every morning, Monday through Friday, to ride as much as possible before work. She builds out her nutrition plans and works on meal prep on Sundays, goes to the gym every night after her shifts. She participates in serving her local community through “Snowboarders for Christ” in her church community group. When you break down her schedule, it sounds like a fun and adventurous road, but this is by far the most challenging road she has ever been on. When you have to hustle this much, you can become quite isolated, which can lead to severe depression even though it is extremely rewarding.

“Everything that is worth having takes hard work, hustle and a lot of determination, sometimes with a side of therapy,” 

One thing that most people don’t know about paralysis is the constant pain that comes with it, called neuropathy pain. In summary, it’s basically like you’re constantly being electrocuted. A combination of throbbing, bee-sting and stabbing sensations. Kiana never knows when it’s going to kick in, and it could be minor or extreme. It comes and goes when it pleases. When the neuropathy pain is at its most severe, it can send her into a neurological shock, which can make her black out and experience seizures. This pain affects her life tremendously. When it’s bad, she can’t train, or even get out of bed. “Sometimes I scream into my pillow for hours and can’t sleep,” she explains. “The worst part is that there is no cure. No magic fix. You just have to toughen up and deal with it until it passes.” It’s a lesson Kiana seems to have carried into other aspects of her life.

Last year, Kiana decided to get a therapy dog after experiencing her second seizure episode while driving. He is in training to be able to help Kiana during difficult times, but she tells us “it’s so nice to have someone to come home to and snuggle with.” Kiana is by herself 99 percent of the time, so her dog helps significantly with her mental health. He loves going to the track, riding shotgun in her truck and traveling everywhere with Kiana. She named him Harley after Harley-Davidson, because he loves motorcycles! She is beyond thankful for him.

“When I look back over the last seven years of being back into action sports, I wouldn’t be on the road that I am on without motocross,” she adds “Getting back on the bike led me to Moto Sports Adaptive, where I met Mike Schultz. He then introduced me to Daniel Gale, who is the director of Adaptive Action Sports. Daniel is helping me on this road to the Paralympics, to make history and pave the way for other future upper-limb females. There is not much of an upper-limb category because of the lack of females showing up. Because of that, I have an awesome opportunity to make a future for disabled upper limb women, and that is all thanks to motocross.”

When she was a kid, she had big dreams. However, when looking back, it seems her injury has opened more doors for her than if she were a fully abled person. Kiana’s first motivational speech was a TED Talk four years ago. She was also invited to speak at the ESPN W event in California, where she represented the adaptive community, snowboarding and disabled women, as well as the motocross community. She got to speak at the Children’s Medical Center gala, where she was first diagnosed; she encouraged the employees by sharing how much their job matters, and she visited kids in multiple trauma units. She passed out old racing jerseys, wrote letters, and got to share her story with them to help encourage them to keep fighting.  

“It was so cool meeting other women who said that they never met a woman motocross competitor before, let alone a disabled one,” she says.

Kiana wouldn’t want her life any other way. She is grateful for what her disability has shown and has taught her. She says she wouldn’t be who she is today without it, and encourages others to learn to love everything about yourself, because that’s what makes you, you.

“Always look at what you have rather than what you don’t,” she shares. “What I have still lets me pursue my dreams and it’s what’s makes me, me.

And that’s enough. These challenges have really humbled me to be grateful and thankful for the little things.