If the Paralympic athletes sponsored by Össur and Ottobock were regarded as independent nations, both teams would have ranked among the top 20 in the overall medal count among the 162 countries that attended the 2021 Tokyo Games. Put the two together, and they piled up more gold medals than all but eight other entrants....
Team USA’s final medal Paralympic medal count ended up at 104, with 37 golds. Both figures rank as the second-highest in history, surpassed only by the 115 medals and 40 golds the Americans won five years ago in Rio. Amputee athletes made up about a third of Team USA’s overall Paralympic contingent, and they brought...
When we spoke with Gary Zenkel, the president of NBC Olympics, back in May, he told us he didn’t have a specific viewership target in mind when it came to the 2021 Paralympics. “We don’t need to set ratings records,” Zenkel said, explaining the network’s goals in airing an unprecedented 1200-plus hours of Paralympic competition...
Through 1992, the Winter and Summer Olympic/Paralympics were always held in the same calendar year. It was only in 1994 that the IOC modified the schedule to create a staggered cycle, with Summer Games during leap years and Winter Games two years later. Because of the one-year pandemic delay, the calendar has temporarily reverted to...
After years of being starved for coverage, Paralympics fans now have more coverage than anyone can keep up with. Here are the amputee athlete storylines we're paying close attention to.
Amputee athlete Katie Holloway fought doggedly to raise Paralympic athletes' medal bonuses to the same level as Olympic athletes. Here's what it took for her to succeed.
Amputee athlete Femita Ayanbeku surprised everyone, including herself, by making the 2016 Paralympic team. For the 2020 Paralympics, no one will be surprised if she brings home a medal.
Who's the youngest amputee athlete on the US Paralympic team? Who's got the most medals? How many are first-time Paralympians? Test your knowledge in our quiz.
Kari Miller-Ortiz can describe both the athleticism and the artistry of sitting volleyball. As a commentator on NBC's Paralympic broadcast team, she wants to share her enthusiasm and passion for the game.
We combed US athletes' Instagram feeds to get a sense of their highs and lows in the wake of the Paralympic Trials. Here's a sampling of their reaction.
Deborah Jackson relied on the adaptive sports community as her son Desmond progressed toward the Paralympics. That community, she says, was a powerful vehicle for her own personal growth.
Amputee athlete Trenten Merrill thinks athletes and fans would benefit from a joint national meet that brings Olympians and Paralympians together in a single venue.
In this era of specialized prosthetic technology, mismatches between amputee and device are common. Even Paralympians aren’t immune, as silver medalist John Register explains.
The Tokyo Paralympics are part of a larger, more important story: the normalization of limb difference and the changing cultural perceptions of disability.
Paralympic athletes are used to making adaptions, and the pandemic was no different. Some even used the down time to get stronger, faster, and more focused heading into Tokyo.
These six amputee athletes have a lot at stake during this week’s US Paralympic Trials. They're not well known yet—but they might be after the Tokyo Games conclude.
Iraq War veteran and three-time Paralympian Melissa Stockwell sees a lot of overlap between the duty to promote American values and the duty to raise amputees’ visibility.
Amputee athlete Desmond Jackson is blazing trails and advancing the cause of cultural inclusion for amputees, people with disabilities, and people of color.
In an exclusive interview, NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel discusses the trends driving the network's beefed-up coverage of the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
As a weightlifter, Jake Schrom can't attract the same sponsorship dollars that swimmers and sprinters can. He pays a big chunk of his own travel, training, and coaching expenses.
Not many Paralympic sprinters have also starred in a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. That’s the remarkable journey of Katy Sullivan, a bilateral amputee who always viewed herself as an actor until her life took an unplanned detour into track and field.
Wheelchair basketball player Brian Bell is focused on winning another gold medal in Tokyo. But outside the arena, he feels a responsibility to use his voice as a Paralympian to address issues beyond sports.
Some of Nichole Millage's sitting volleyball teammates were still in grade school when she won her first Paralympic medal. Here's how she breaks down the roster and her own role in it.
Paralympic athlete Ezra Frech believes passionately that adaptive sports can empower all people with disabilities and help everyone—even non-athletes—feel like a champion.
Melissa Stockwell was part of the first wave of US Paralympians to demonstrate the marketing potential of adaptive athletes. Here's why advertisers are increasingly apt to see the Paralympics as a great marketing opportunity.
The NCAA's nonsensical eligibility guidelines left Paralympic medal contender Hunter Woodhall with only one logical choice: turn pro.
Although he had the misfortune to lose his right leg in a childhood accident, Brian Bell had the good luck to grow up in the adaptive sports hotbed of Birmingham, Alabama. Blessed with first-rate coaching, equipment, and sponsorship support from an early age, Bell blossomed into one of the nation’s most sought-after wheelchair basketball recruits...
This year’s Paralympics will be the first to offer live coverage of every sport to US television viewers. Here are a handful of US amputees who have high hopes in low-profile sports
Amputee volleyball player Nichole Millage already has a Paralympic gold and two silvers. So why is she putting herself through the wringer for a shot at one last medal?
Melissa Stockwell was supposed to be six months into retirement from athletics by now, focused on family and business and (ideally) basking in the glow of a Tokyo gold medal. When the 2020 Games were pushed back by a year due to COVID, she briefly entertained the idea of sticking with Plan A—retiring on schedule,...
When COVID put the Paralympics on hold, amputee athlete Hunter Woodhall didn’t need long to figure out how to rechannel his energy. He launched a new company. And he didn’t worry about the stuff he couldn’t control.
The US Olympic and Paralympic Museum was originally supposed to open back in May, about a month before the Olympic and Paralympic Trials and three months (give or take) before the Tokyo Games. For reasons we needn’t rehash, the opening got delayed and the Games got postponed. We’re still a year out from the (now)...
Congrats to the team of paratriathletes who kicked off National Triathlon Week by cycling across Colorado’s deserts, peaks and plains to raise $21,000+ (and counting) for people who’ve taken a hit in the pocketbook because of the pandemic.
SFC Allan Armstrong resumed running just six months after he lost his leg in a motorcycle accident in 2013. He returned to active military duty a few months after that, took up paratriathlon in 2015, and won his first U.S. championship in less than two years.
When we spoke to Lacey Henderson back on March 19, the Paralympics were still supposedly going to be held on schedule in August 2020. She no longer had a place to train, though—her regular training facility had closed a few days earlier—and all the spring qualifying meets had been called off.
Hunter Woodhall is one of the biggest stars and most recognizable faces on the US Paralympics team. We’ll be talking to Hunter regularly throughout 2020 as he prepares for his second Paralympic Games and pursues his first gold medal(s) in track and field. This conversation took place in late February, after Hunter wrapped up a long weekend with prosthetist Francois Van Der Watt.