Building A Legacy Greater Than Gold: Declan Farmer on Pressure, Process, and the Paralympics

Declan Farmer has never lost a gold medal game at the Paralympics. 

4 gold medal games. 4 golds in Sochi, PyeongChang, Beijing, and in Milan, where the weight of completing the U.S. hockey threepeat sat on the team's shoulders for two weeks straight.

He is the first sled hockey player in history to score over 200 career goals. He holds every all-time record his sport has.

And he’s fueled by a love for the process. 

"I'm lucky in that way, where I enjoy the process of it. I love training and getting better. I’m not just trying to chase Paralympics. Because they're just too few to sustain a career."

The Kid Who Played In A Paralympics Before Watching One 

It all began at Tampa Bay Lightning community clinic in Clearwater, Florida. 

"As an 8-year-old, I didn't even really know what the Paralympics were. I don't think I even watched the Vancouver Paralympics. It just wasn't super accessible back then."

Six years later he made the national team. Two years after that, at just 16 years old, he was competing in Sochi, playing in the first Winter Paralympics ever broadcast on US national TV.

He won gold and then went back to high school.

“Back then, the sport was a lot less developed than it is now. There were fewer players. Now, it would be really tough to make this team as a 16-year-old."

The sport he grew up in and the sport he leads now look very different. Farmer is doing his part to make sure of that. 

"It’s been cool to grow up within this Paralympic movement, and do my part within it. Each season of my career, I've put more of myself into improving my game and improving the team.” 

Photo Credit: Amy Wotovich / Back The Team

Going All In

"I never thought sled hockey was gonna be something that could consume my life full-time. Even in college, I never saw that coming."

He graduated from Princeton with an economics degree and the intent to get a desk job. But, ahead of the Beijing Paralympics he took two years to play full-time. 

“I remember thinking to myself, I don’t want to waste the prime of my career not going all-in.” 

But going all in required the sport to meet him halfway. That's where the women's hockey team comes in.

"The women's Olympic team were the pioneers of pushing for more equal treatment, equal compensation in hockey. We've kind of followed suit and really pushed the base level of pay for our sport."

With more pay, more guys are able to commit. The more guys committed, the higher the ceiling climbs.

"When it becomes a true profession, and not just a hobby, it naturally brings more people into it. People are not gonna give up on it so easily. It's really gonna grow the sport and the Paralympic movement so that more people with disabilities are out doing sports."

That's where it's going.

"I think every kid wants to be a professional athlete when they grow up, that's the total fantasy. My younger self would be pumped to find out that actually happened in the sport I love most."

Photo Credit: Amy Wotovich / Back The Team

The Weight of Gold

The women's hockey team had won gold in Milan. Then the men's hockey team won too. The sled hockey team was last to take the ice in pursuit of a USA Hockey threepeat. 

Farmer held it together with confidence. He knew that within a team, mindset matters. 

"You never let it get to you publicly, because everyone on the team has an impact on each other. Playing Canada for a gold medal in a sold-out crowd…majority Canadian, which kind of adds to the excitement…that truly was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Once this is over, I'm gonna be wishing I was back again."

The U.S. won 6-2. Farmer was named tournament MVP with fifteen goals and twenty-five assists.

But after the gold, he's honest about what it actually felt like.

"It was quite frankly tougher than I was expecting. The pressure did kind of start weighing on me quite a bit in the second half of the tournament. It was probably the most anxious I've been, just wanting to know the result. Just wanting to get this thing done."

The pressure wasn't about his legacy. It was about what winning would mean for a sport on the rise.

"My whole career, we've only won. That comes with privilege, I think. We didn't want to be the team that kind of blew the sweep. I think I learned a lot about how to better deal with pressure going forward."

And moving forward, Farmer is committed to protecting the momentum of a sport with ample room to grow. 

"We're still in a position where we're trying to grow sled hockey. Our success has definitely helped that quite a bit.” 

The kid from Clearwater who once didn't know what the Paralympics were just became the greatest sled hockey player of all time. And he's already thinking about what’s next.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

I'm Amy Wotovich and I’m on a mission to interview 100% of Team USA's 2026 Olympic and Paralympic athletes to create the most comprehensive mindset record of a single Games cycle. What do elite competitors actually believe about pressure, identity, failure, and joy? Declan Farmer is one of hundreds of athletes sharing their unfiltered stories. Follow the journey!