For Team USA, the Paralympics took a parallel course to the Olympics.
In the first few days, successes seemed astonishingly rare. Swimmers were taking a few silver medals, but not much gold, and it appeared that the team may have evolved from “experienced” to “aging.”
Then came the gold rush.
US track and field Paralympians wound up with a medal count similar to their Olympic counterparts – 38 medals and 10 gold, compared with the Olympians’ 34 medals and 14 gold.
The Paralympics even offered an inverted replay of a viral celebration by the Davis-Woodhall family. In the Olympics, Hunter Woodhall was on hand to congratulate Tara Davis-Woodhall on her long jump gold. In the Paralympics, Tara was the one in the stands to hug her husband after his emphatic win in the 400m T63.
All told, the US Paralympic team took 36 gold medals to the Olympic team’s 40. The Paralympians also brought in 105 total medals, a bit behind the Olympic team’s 126 but still comfortably in triple digits. But there’s a big difference in comparing Paralympic and Olympic medal counts. The Olympics topped out at 329 medal events. The Paralympics had 549.
So while Team USA finished atop the Olympic medal table by any sensible criteria – gold medals, total medals or a points system – the Paralympic team was nowhere near the top. Team GB finished far ahead of Team USA, with 49 gold medals and a total of 124. And neither team was anywhere near China’s staggering tally of 94 gold, 76 silver and 50 bronze – a total of 220.
Which raises a complicated question: How should the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee define success? Is it strictly in terms of medals?
It’s tempting to use Paralympic medal counts as a gauge of a country’s disability rights or to justify government intervention. A unique feature of US sports is the lack of a government entity that oversees sports, but a commission reported to Congress this year that it may be time for the government to step in: “It is time for Congress to accept that, while we will never have a ‘ministry of sport’ model in this country, the federal government has more of a role to play in ensuring safety, equity, accessibility, and accountability in sports than it has so far acknowledged and accepted.”
But the reasons to be skeptical of such a proposal aren’t just American exceptionalism or the fear that the next President may be someone who has pledged to tilt the scale of authoritarianism v accountability firmly toward the former. Consider the contrasting fortunes of Team GB, which excelled in the Paralympics this year as it usually does, and the UK government, which earlier this year met the wrath of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which found the country had made little to no progress on disability rights since it was first called out on the matter eight years ago.
So perhaps the question of the government’s role in sports, particularly disability sports, isn’t simply a function of how many medals the country’s Paralympians win. And compared with the 1980s, when the modern Paralympics were born, today’s Games have far more athletes in far fewer events.
Still, it’s difficult not to notice that the USA’s numbers have dropped. In 1988, the USA sent 371 athletes. This year, they sent 225, including athletes who have no disability but compete as guides for visually impaired Paralympians. The Paralympics have raised the bar on qualification, but is it alarming that fewer US athletes can make it in?
And is Team USA adequately developing the next generation? Only 78 of the team’s 225 Paralympians were first-timers, and few of them won medals. Some of the most accomplished Paralympians in history, including swimmer Jessica Long and wheelchair racer Tatyana McFadden, had a mix of medal-winning performances and disappointments.
In some cases, the Paralympics aren’t quite in sync with US strengths. Earlier this year, Josh McKinney became the first Paralympic soccer player inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame, entering alongside Tim Howard, whose World Cup exploits were viral sensations in his day. But McKinney’s sport, seven-a-side soccer for players with cerebral palsy and similar conditions, is no longer part of the Paralympics. The Games include blind soccer, in which the USA did not qualify.
The good news for the USA was that they had no shortage of inspirational performances:
• Noelle Malkamaki, who competed collegiately at DePaul, set a world record in the T46 (arm impairment) shot put.
• Miles Krajewski showed off his relentless court coverage in upsetting defending champion Krishna Nagar in men’s badminton singles, and he teamed with Jayci Simon to take silver in mixed doubles.
• Sarah Adam became the first woman to play for a US wheelchair rugby Paralympic team, and she emerged as one of the team’s top offensive players.
• Derek Loccident, a former college football player who lost part of his left leg after his foot was severed by a train, debuted in five diverse events, including the 100m and the javelin throw. He took silver in the long jump and high jump.
• Jaydin Blackwell had a smashing Paralympic debut in the T38 class (coordination impairment), setting a world record in the 100m and tying his own world record in the 400m.
• Matt Stutzman, the prototypical armless archer, made a thrilling run to his first gold medal. Along the way, he won the first matchup of armless archers in the Paralympics, showing the impact the 41-year-old archer has had on the sport.
• US triathletes won eight medals. The US women’s sitting volleyball team and men’s wheelchair basketball teams won their third straight gold medals.
• Even after a slow start in her first events, Jessica Long won her 17th and 18th gold medals in her Paralympic swimming career. Cyclist/skier Oksana Masters also took two gold medals to run her career totals to nine gold and 19 overall.
And these feats are grabbing a wider audience than ever before in the USA. NBC made much of the Games available on Peacock, allowing viewers to hop between wheelchair tennis matches or maybe try to figure out how boccia (which had no US participants) is played, and ratings for NBC’s main broadcasts were substantially higher than in 2021, helped in part by Paris being in a more favorable time zone than Tokyo.
The next part of the equation is providing access for any would-be Paralympians hoping to be the next Long or Loccident. Olympians from the USA (and many other countries) benefit from the US college sports system, offering a four-year combination of education and training, and the USOPC is trying to steer prospective Paralympians to college as well. A handful of colleges offer intercollegiate wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis teams. Many track and field athletes and swimmers also compete on their colleges’ varsity able-bodied teams.
Athletes in these programs now will soon have the biggest opportunity of all – the Paralympics will be on home soil in Los Angeles in four years. It’s safe to say the USA will have more than 225 athletes. What happens between now and then may determine whether the 2028 Games will be a springboard for future success, whether that means catching China in the medal count or expanding access for disability athletes everywhere in the country. Or both.