U.S. announces 2024 Paralympic team, with 225 members headed to Paris

For those who are losing interest in the competition after the Paris 2024 Olympics end, fear not: the Games are not over yet. The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games are coming soon, kicking off with an Opening Ceremony on Wednesday, August 28.

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) released The 225-member U.S. team will be announced Monday. It will include 110 male and 110 female para-athletes, as well as five guides, who will represent the United States in Paris.

While 78 athletes will be making their Paralympic debuts, Team USA also includes 141 returning Paralympians. 52 of those returning veterans have won previous Paralympic gold medals.

Three Americans, multi-sport athlete Oksana Masters, marathoner Tatyana McFadden and table tennis player Tahl Leibovitz, will be competing in their seventh Paralympic Games. Masters has competed in every Summer and Winter Games since 2012; she has competed in four different sports, winning nine Paralympic medals in Para Nordic skiing and five in Para biathlon at the Winter Games. On the summer side, she won a bronze medal in Para rowing in 2012 and two gold medals in Para cycling in Tokyo.

Swimmer Jessica Long, who has won 29 Paralympic medals for the United States, will be competing in her sixth Games. The 32-year-old has competed in every Paralympic Games since Athens 2004, where she won three gold medals. Long is second in the Paralympic medal standings for the United States, behind Trischa Zorn.

Another notable name returning is Hunter Woodhall, the wife of Olympic long jump gold medalist Tara Davis-Woodhall. He will be competing in his third Paralympic Games, having won a silver medal in the 200m and a bronze in the 400m in Rio, and another bronze in the 400m in Tokyo. Davis-Woodhall will also be in Paris as part of a group of Team USA influencers, representing the YouTube channel she and Woodhall run together.

Following the opening ceremony, the Paralympic Games will run from August 29 to September 8. In total, the games will feature 22 sports and 549 medal events.

Just like the Olympics, the events will be held in famous Parisian venues: the Grand Palais will be used for wheelchair fencing and taekwondo, the Champ de Mars for judo and wheelchair rugby, the Château de Versailles for equestrian events and wheelchair tennis at Roland Garros. The stadium next to the Eiffel Tower, used for beach volleyball during the Olympics, will host football for the blind.

The opening ceremony will take place next Wednesday on the Champs-Élysées and on the Place de la Concorde, a public square near the Louvre. Like the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games will make history by being the first to take place outside a stadium.