The Paralympics wrapped up on Sunday, ending 11 jam-packed days of competitors and a summer season of jaw-dropping athleticism in Paris.
And the outcomes are in.
China prolonged its two-decade-long Paralympic successful streak, dominating each the general medal count (220) and in gold medals (94) for the sixth Summer time Video games in a row.
Nice Britain positioned second with 124 complete medals, 49 of them gold. The U.S. was shut behind with 105 medals, together with 36 gold. The Netherlands and Brazil rounded out the highest 5.
Crew USA competed in 20 sports activities (out of twenty-two included on this 12 months’s Video games) and earned podium finishes in 16, in keeping with the committee. Fifty-three American athletes gained their first Paralympic medals, and 29 left Paris with a couple of.
“We’re so pleased with Crew USA and their unimaginable performances on the Paris 2024 Paralympic Video games,” said Sarah Hirshland, the CEO of U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “Their willpower and grit invigorated and impressed a proud nation and followers around the globe, uniting us all by way of the transformative energy of sport.”
Crew USA swept swimming and observe
The U.S. earned most of its medals in Para observe and subject (38 complete), adopted by swimming (30). It additionally gained huge in biking (8), triathlon (8) and equestrian (7).
On the observe, Tatyana McFadden earned her twenty first medal to develop into the most decorated U.S. athlete within the sport. Roderick Townsend completed a three-peat within the males’s excessive leap T47, taking residence his third consecutive gold within the occasion since 2016, whereas Ezra Fech won his first two gold medals in his second Video games.
And half of the fan-favorite power coupleHunter-Woodhall won gold within the males’s 400m T62 closing, simply weeks after his spouse, Tara Davis-Woodhall, gained gold within the Olympic lengthy leap.
Within the pool, six-time Paralympian Jessica Lengthy gained two medals to deliver her profession complete to 31 (together with 18 gold). That makes Lengthy — who gained her first medal at Athens 2004 at age 12 — the second-most adorned American Paralympian of all time.
“I am coming in direction of the top of my profession — I hope to finish in LA,” she told Olympics.com.
First-time Paralympic swimmers additionally made headlines and racked up medals. Ali Truwit gained two silver medals only a 12 months after dropping a part of her leg in a shark assault, and Christie Raleigh Crossley gained 5 medals — and set a 50-meter freestyle world file — despite facing bullying from individuals who have doubted her incapacity.
Raleigh Crossley is tied with fellow swimmer Ellie Marks for many medals gained by an American Paralympian in Paris.
Marks, a U.S. Military sergeant first-class who now has 9 profession Paralympic medals — together with Crew USA’s first medal of the Paris Video games — served as one of many flag bearers at Sunday’s closing ceremony.
People prolonged successful streaks and achieved notable firsts
It was a banner year for team sports, with Crew USA successful repeat medals in lots of occasions.
The U.S. Para triathlon team gained eight medals, the very best efficiency for any nation within the sport and the third 12 months in a row the U.S. has positioned first.
Crew USA gained its third straight title in males’s wheelchair basketball — the primary nation to ever achieve this — in addition to girls’s sitting volleyball.
The ladies’s wheelchair basketball workforce gained silver for the primary time in 32 years. The storied wheelchair rugby workforce additionally gained a silver medal, reaching the rostrum for its seventh consecutive Video games.
4-time medalist Chuck Aoki cemented his standing because the most decorated wheelchair rugby player in U.S. historical past, whereas Sarah Adam made history as the primary American lady to win a Paralympic medal within the sport.
That’s considered one of many notable firsts for American athletes.
Duo Miles Krajewski and Jayci Simon — each 19 years previous — overcame the percentages and a collection of logistical obstacles to develop into the primary U.S. athletes to medal in the sport of badminton at both the Paralympic or Olympic Video games.
4-time Paralympian Matt Stutzman made historical past because the first armless archer to win a Paralympic gold medal, within the males’s particular person compound open.
Jeremy Campbell turned the primary Paralympian to throw over 60 meters in discus F64 (which earned him his fourth discus gold medal), whereas Noelle Malkamaki turned the primary lady to throw over 14 meters within the shot put F46 (which gained her a gold medal and broke her personal world file). Liana Mutia turned the first American woman to medal in Para judo-57 kg.
And multi-sport athlete Oksana Masters repeated as champion in each of her particular person Para biking highway race occasions, bringing her profession medal complete to 19 in 4 totally different sports activities — rowing, cross-country snowboarding, biathlon and biking — throughout each Winter and Summer time Video games.
Marriage proposals, the primary refugee workforce medals and different milestones
The Paralympics have been filled with unimaginable athletic achievements, highly effective private tales and different significant milestones.
Athletes broke more than 40 world records in lower than two weeks, from the observe and pool to the biking area and powerlifting bench.
Taekwondo athlete Zakia Khudadadi gained the Refugee Paralympic Team’s first-ever medal, and sprinter Guillaume Junior Atangana gained its second within the males’s T11 400 meter. They every devoted their bronze medals to the greater than 120 million folks worldwide forcibly displaced from their homes.
A number of nations, like Eritrea, have been represented on the Video games for the primary time. Others reached the medal podium for the primary time, like Nepal, whose Palesha Goverdhan gained bronze in taekwondo to offer the nation its first-ever Paralympic or Olympic medal.
In one other first, British Para archer Jodie Grinham turned the primary recognized pregnant athlete to make it to the Paralympic podium. She gained each the ladies’s particular person compound bronze and combined workforce gold “regardless of having to pause at occasions to reset her focus as a result of child kicking,” according to Olympics.com.
And among the many many memorable moments exterior of the competitors have been a whopping four marriage proposals to, by or between Paralympic athletes, a becoming motif for the “metropolis of affection.”
Preliminary numbers recommend that after a highly-watched Olympics in July, numerous viewers saved up with the motion by way of September: Two million tickets to the Paralympics have been bought by the day of the opening ceremony, and British broadcaster Channel 4 said on the midway mark that the variety of streaming views was double what it had been throughout that time in Tokyo 2020.
The subsequent summer season Olympics and Paralympics will likely be held in Los Angeles in 2028.
Till then, we have now the 2026 Winter Video games in Italy to stay up for — in addition to the looks of beloved U.S. Olympians together with rugby participant Ilona Maher and gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik on the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars.