Paris 2024 Paralympic Games: Jessica Long, Chuck Aoki and other Team USA athletes to know
The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games get underway on Thursday with Team USA bringing 120 athletes (split equally between men and women) to Paris, along with five guides.
Get to know some of the top US stars who will compete in the Games from 28 August until 8 September.
Jessica Long, Para swimming
Only one American Paralympian has more medals than Jessica Long: Trischa Zorn. Long has already won 29 Paralympic swimming medals - including 16 gold medals - since her debut at the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games. Long will be looking to add to that tally in Paris after winning six events at the US Paralympic Trials earlier this summer.
“I’ve always believed that when you get to the Games, it comes down to being mentally tough. This will be my sixth Games. I have the experience. And even when there are moments of doubt, or this will be the first time, I’m assuming, swimming in front of this large a crowd since Rio, I just go back to, it’s just swimming. You know how to do it,” she said earlier this year.
Brittni Mason, Para athletics
When Brittni Mason was a child, she took part in gymnastics, swimming, dance and basketball, but there was something about the sprinters that she wanted to emulate. Mason clearly found her sport—in her Olympic debut at at Tokyo 2020, she won three medals including gold in the 4x100 mixed relay team, she will race again in Paris.
“Growing up watching the Olympics and the girls wearing the cute uniforms, the nails, their hair being done, that really resonated with me and I was like, 'Oh my goodness, this is so cute. They're so fast. They're feminine, but they're also athletes'. And so that's a big reason why I kind of got into the sport and really stuck with it,” she explained earlier this year.
Charles Aoki of Team USA competes against Great Britain in group A wheelchair rugby match at Tokyo 2020
Charles 'Chuck' Aoki, wheelchair rugby
In 2005, the movie “Murderball” debuted, showing the rough and tumble world of wheelchair rugby. It showed how players don’t hold back while trying to win a game. A young Chuck Aoki, who uses a wheelchair, was hooked.
“I started competing after I saw the movie... and I thought, ‘Wow, that looks like a lot of fun to get knocked around and beat up.’ So I showed up to a practice, and got knocked around and beat up for two hours straight, and I fell in love with it instantly. And I've been playing wheelchair rugby ever since,” Aoki told Team USA.
That decision set him on the road to three Paralympic medals at London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, as well as a World Championship title in 2010. Aoki has been at the heart of the US men’s wheelchair rugby team for more than a decade and the US team are once again among the favourites to medal in Paris.
Katie Bridge, sitting volleyball
The US women’s sitting volleyball team has medalled at every Paralympic Games since the sport was introduced in 2004, and Katie Bridge has been on every one of those teams, save 2004.
Bridge took up the sport in 2006 and among various personal accolades was named the tournament MVP at Tokyo 2020. For Paris 2024, she will come into the Games with another title: Mom. She gave birth to her daughter Claire in December 2022, before returning to the sport she loves.
Noelle Malkamaki poses for a photo after winning and setting a new World Record in the Women's Shot Put F46 Final during day seven of the Para Athletics World Championships Paris 2023
Noelle Malkamaki, Para athletics
The day Noelle Malkamaki tried throwing the shot put and discus, though she was young, she knew she had found her sport. After she was recruited to DePaul University, she learned that she could compete for her college team and try to make the US Paralympic team. Malkamaki focused on the shot put, and has now twice set a world record. She has two World Championship titles and is hoping to add a Paralympic medal to her collection at Paris 2024 with another shot at the world record also in the cards.
“I want to push this record so far out there that nobody can ever touch it," she told Team USA. "That’s the perspective I feel like I’ve had to take on because otherwise how do you find the motivation to keep going? There’s always a personal record to be achieve regardless of what place you’re in."
Brian Bell, wheelchair basketball
The US men’s wheelchair basketball team has won 14 Paralympic medals, including nine gold. Two of those golds were won in the last two Paralympic Games, with teams led by Brian Bell.
As well as winning gold at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, Bell helped the team win gold at the 2022 World Championships and 2023 ParaPan American Games, and will surely be a key player for the US team once again in Paris.
Tara Davis-Woodhall of Team USA celebrates with her husband Hunter Woodhall after winning gold in the women's long jump at Paris 2024
Hunter Woodhall, Para athletics
The last time many fans saw Hunter Woodhall, he was in the stands at the Stade de France congratulating his wife, Tara Davis-Woodhall, for winning Olympic gold in the long jump. Now it’s his turn to compete.
Woodhall won silver and bronze medals at Rio 2016, bronze in Tokyo five years later and took two silvers at the World Championships earlier this year. The 25-year-old will be looking to add to his trophy cabinet in Paris - this time with his wife looking on.
Nick Mayhugh, Para athletics
At Tokyo 2020, Nick Mayhugh set the world record for the men’s 100m T37 sprint in a time of 10.95. That record still stands as he heads into Paris, where he will again try to capture gold as one of the best sprinters in his division.
Mayhugh has previouly competed internationally in Para football 7-a-side, winning bronze for the US at the 2019 Parapan American Games. He will also compete in the men's long jump at Paris 2024.