Three years ago the United States sent 235 athletes to the Paralympic Games in Tokyo and won 104 medals.
Some of these athletes were born with physical challenges, while others suffered devastating injuries from accidents or attacks. Some have been Paralympians since just after the turn of the century.
Here are 10 American athletes to watch in Paris, starting with the Big Three: athletes who have collectively won dozens of Paralympic medals, all of whom were born in the former Soviet Union and adopted by American parents who could provide them with the medical treatments they needed to survive and thrive.
Jessica Long, swimming
The most decorated person at the US Paralympics has simply astonishing numbers.
Since making her debut in 2004 at the age of 12, when she won gold in the 100m freestyle in her first Paralympic final, the 32-year-old swimmer has won 29 Paralympic medals (16 gold) and 37 world championships. She helped bring Paralympic sports into mainstream sporting culture, by four ESPY awards and become a familiar face in American TV commercials, including an emotional advertisement tells the story of her adoption that took place during the Super Bowl in 2021. She was also the first Paralympic athlete to win the sullivan prizeawarded to the best amateur athlete in the US.
Long was born with fibular hemimelia, a condition that left her missing several bones in her lower legs. She had both legs amputated below the knee when she was 18 months old, shortly after being adopted from a Russian orphanage.
Oksana Masters, cycling
Masters was born with multiple birth defects as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He was adopted at age 7 and had both legs amputated at age 14.
Since then she has competed at the Paralympic Games six times in four different sports, winning 17 medals, seven of which were gold.
She made her rowing debut in 2012 with a bronze medal, and then began her Paralympic cross-country skiing and biathlon career with two cross-country skiing medals in 2014. In 2018, she was promoted and won her first two Paralympic gold medals.
Due to back problems, she switched her summer sport to handcycling and won her next two gold medals in Tokyo: the time trial and the road race. In 2022, she returned to the snow to win two gold medals in biathlon and a gold in cross-country relay, and won her first two world cycling championships that summer. Since then, she has won one more world cycling championship and two more in winter sports, bringing her career total to 16.
Masters’ boyfriend, Aaron Pike, is a cross-country skier and long-distance athlete who is also competing in his seventh Paralympic Games – three in the winter and now four in the summer.
Tatyana McFadden, athletics
Name a distance and the 35-year-old McFadden has had success with it.
In addition to her 20 Paralympic medals (eight of them gold), the Leningrad-born wheelchair racer has won the Boston Marathon five times, the New York City Marathon five times, the London Marathon four times and the Chicago Marathon an impressive nine times.
But she is hardly a distance specialist. She has won gold medals in races as short as 400m and took gold in the mixed 4x100m in Tokyo. She also has individual medals in every distance up to and including 100m.
She also took up cross-country skiing and competed in her native country in 2014, winning silver in a sprint race and meeting with her biological mother.
Tyler Merren, goalball
If the pattern of success continues into his fifth Paralympics, Merren and his goalball teammates will take home gold this year. The U.S. took bronze in 2004 and fourth in 2008. After failing to qualify in 2012, Merren and the U.S. men returned to take silver in 2016, finishing fourth in Tokyo.
Merren has not been idle for a moment, leading the team with 21 goals at the 2022 World Cup, as the men missed out on the knockout stages.
Ian Seidenfeld, table tennis
Before the Tokyo Games, no American had won gold in Paralympic table tennis since Tahl Leibovitz in 1996. Seidenfeld, who has dwarfism, broke the drought with a victory over reigning champion Peter Rosenmeier of Denmark.
Leibovitz is still part of the team and is visiting the Games for the seventh time at the age of 49.
Becca Murray, wheelchair basketball
The Wisconsin native made her Paralympic debut at age 18, winning gold in Beijing.
By the time the Rio Paralympics rolled around, Murray was a dominant force. She led all scorers at the Games, averaging 24.1 points per game, more than five points more than any other player. In the final against Germany, which the U.S. won 62-45, she scored 33 points.
But in 2020, when the Tokyo Games were postponed, she turned a short vacation into a full pensionShe was not on the team that won bronze in Tokyo the following year.
Her retirement didn’t last long. She returned to join the U.S. team for the 2023 World Championships and was a solid contributor on another bronze-winning team.
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This year’s U.S. team is loaded with experience: only one of the team’s 12 players is making her Paralympic debut.
Chuck Aoki, wheelchair rugby
While working on his PhD in comparative politics and international relations, the wheelchair rugby veteran continued his pursuit of an elusive Paralympic gold medal.
The U.S. team won gold when Aoki first competed at the world championships in 2010. Since then, the U.S. has won a medal at every world championship and Paralympic Games, but has yet to regain gold.
In Rio, the US dragged Australia into overtime, but lost 59-58. In Tokyo, Great Britain pulled away in the final four minutes to win 54-49. At the 2022 World Cup, Australia held off the US again.
After carrying the American flag at the opening ceremony in Tokyo, Aoki led the team in scoring with 21.8 tries per game, ranking sixth among all players at the Paralympic Games.
Kendall Gretsch, triathlon
Gretsch will have a hard time matching what she did in the PTWC (wheelchair athletes) race in Tokyo, where she passed Australian Lauren Parker in the final few meters to take gold. The event has a staggered start based on the athletes’ classification, meaning Gretsch spent the entire race trying to close in on Parker’s lead before finally coming into view on the final wheelchair lap.
The three-sport athlete has also won three gold medals at the 2018 and 2022 Winter Paralympics in cross-country skiing and biathlon, and has 17 world championship titles to her name across her summer and winter sports.
Katie Holloway Bridge, seated volleyball
Eleven of the twelve members of the US sitting volleyball team have won Paralympic gold, in Tokyo, Rio or both.
Holloway Bridge was the tournament MVP in Tokyo, where he scored 54 points (36 attacks, 17 blocks and an ace), including a stunning 20-point performance in the gold medal game against China.
She also played college basketball for Cal State Northridge with a prosthetic leg and finished her career ranked among the school’s all-time leading scorers in blocked shots (second) and rebounds (sixth).
Noah Malone, track and field
Like Holloway Bridge, Malone had a successful career in able-bodied collegiate sports, setting two para world records in the T12 (visually impaired) class while helping Indiana State’s able-bodied track and field team win the 2022 Missouri Valley Conference meet.
In Tokyo he won gold in the 4x100m mixed relay and silver in the 100m and 400m T12 (visual impairment). In 2023 he added a world championship in the 100m.
Six more to watch
Matt Stutzmanwho gained fame as the pioneering ‘Armless Archer’ and once set the world record for the longest throw to hit a target, is the only archer on the team with a Paralympic medal.
Eric Bennetton his way to his fifth Paralympic Games, is a high school physics teacher who hopes to emulate the success of one of his former archery students in Paris: Brady Ellison, who won individual silver and mixed team bronze at the Olympic Games.
Roxie Trunnell became the first U.S. Paralympic equestrian champion in Tokyo, teaming with Rebecca Hart and Kate Shoemaker, both returning this year, to win bronze in the team event.
Travis Gaertner makes his Paralympic cycling debut 20 years after winning his second of two Paralympic gold medals in another sport (wheelchair basketball) with another country (Canada) in another era (2000 and 2004).
Hunter Woodhall has three medals in Paralympic athletics and six medals in world championships, including two silver medals this year. He has already impressed in Paris this year cheering for his wifeTara Davis-Woodhall, who won gold in the long jump at the Olympics.