In 100 days, over four-thousand athletes will descend on Paris for the 2024 Paralympic Games. The seventeenth iteration of the Paralympics, set to run from August 28 to September 8, will see athletes from all over the world illuminate the City of Light with their athletic prowess, passion and competitive spirit.
The U.S. won 37 gold medals and 104 total medals at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2020. In Paris, the U.S. looks to build upon its Tokyo medal performance across 22 sports. Here are the biggest names from Team USA looking to win gold this summer.
Swimming
Jessica Long, a 29-time Paralympic medalist in para swimming, is on the short list of Paralympian greats. The Baltimore, Maryland native debuted at the Paralympics in Athens at age 12 and took home three gold medals that year. In the two decades since her debut, Long has gone on to become a 37-time world champion and is a gold medal favorite in the 100m butterfly and 200m medley S8 this summer.
Morgan Stickney will return to Paris for her second Paralympic appearance after she took home two gold medals during her debut in Tokyo. Stickney made waves last year in Orlando, Florida at the 2023 U.S. Paralympics Swimming National Championships when she broke the world record with both her final and split time in the 1500m free.
New to the Paralympic waters is 21-year-old Olivia Chambers. The Little Rock, Arkansas native captured six medals at the 2023 World Championships and is the American record holder for the S13 400m individual medley and world record holder in the S13 1500m freestyle.
Track and Field
Ezra Frech returns to the Paralympic Games with a new resolve and a newfound confidence after he left Tokyo in tears for failing to earn a medal in the high jump. After he finished fifth in the high jump and eight in the long jump T63 events, the Los Angeles, California native started to train under the tutelage of four-time Paralympic medalist Roderick Townsend. In 2023, Frech won the world title in the high jump T63 and set a world record, making him the gold medal favorite going into Paris.
A star was born in 2023 at the world championships. Jaydin Blackwell, a 19-year-old Detroit, Michigan native, won the 100m and 400m titles and broke the world record in the T38 classification in the 400m. He went on to be named the 2023 USATF U20 Men’s Athlete of the Year and is set to make his Paralympic debut in Paris.
Noelle Malkamaki competes in shot put at the NCAA Division I level at DePaul University. In 2023, she took home the gold in the shot put F46 women’s division and set a new record three separate times during the World Para Athletics Championships.
Cycling
Oksana Masters is a busy athlete. In 2022, she broke the career U.S. Winter Paralympic medals record with 14. She is again expected to switch back to cycling for a Summer Games bid. She has competed in each of the last six Paralympics, including winter and summer, and has won seven gold medals.
In Tokyo, she took home gold in the H4-5 time trial event and the women’s H5 cycling road race. Six months later, she went on to win another three gold medals between cross-country skiing and biathlon.
Three-peat potentials
The U.S. men’s wheelchair basketball squad could make history in Paris and become the first team to win three straight gold medals in men’s wheelchair basketball. Three-time Paralympic medalist and team co-captains Steve Serio and Trevon Jenifer led the team to victory in 2023 at the Parapan American Games and are looking to continue their on-court dominance at the Paralympics. The men’s team returns to the Games with six of the 12 members from the gold medal-winning team in Tokyo and looks to do the same in Paris. For Serio, a veteran Paralympian and the face of U.S. wheelchair basketball, this will be his fifth and final Paralympics.
The U.S. women’s sitting volleyball team also will be seeking its third straight Paralympic gold in Paris. Setter Kaleo Kanahele Maclay, a three-time Paralympian and two-time gold medalist with the U.S., is not only a senior player but one of several mothers on the team, including Lora Webster, Katie Holloway Bridge and Jillian Williams.
After she tested positive for COVID-19 just a few days before the Tokyo Paralympics and was forced to withdraw, Nicky Nieves hopes to return to the Paralympic court and capture the gold she missed in Tokyo.
Fresh faces
Sarah Adam already has made history, and she hasn’t even gotten to Paris yet. She’s shattered the glass rugby pitch ceiling as the first woman to be on the roster for the U.S. wheelchair rugby Paralympic team. The 33-year-old was first introduced to wheelchair rugby after working as an able-bodied volunteer at the local wheelchair rugby club. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and began playing wheelchair rugby recreationally in 2017 and started playing competitively in 2019.
Adam will be joined on the Paralympic pitch by her teammate, Zion Redington. The 17-year-old is a rising star for Team USA and will make his Paralympic debut in Paris. He was the top U.S. scorer during the first two matches of the 2023 Para Pan Am Games.
Bobby Body just might have the best name at the Paralympics. Yes, that is the para powerlifter’s real government name. In 2006, Body was injured after an IED struck a Humvee he was in while deployed in Iraq with the Army. After 18 surgeries on his leg, he made the decision to amputate above the knee in 2013. At age 49, Body might be an older newcomer to the Paralympics, but a fresh face in the world of para powerlifting. In 2023, he set the new Parapan American Record and won gold for the U.S.
