Workforce USA has chosen sitting volleyball participant Nicky Nieves and wheelchair basketball participant Steve Serio as flagbearers for the 2024 Paris Paralympic video games.
The 2 athletes will lead Workforce USA through the Paralympic Opening Ceremony, which takes place Wednesday in Paris. Each are returning gold medalists and can assist Workforce USA defend gold medals.
Nieves, 34, will likely be competing in her second Paralympics after serving to the U.S. sitting volleyball group to gold in 2016. Nieves was named to the preliminary roster for Tokyo in 2021, however examined constructive for COVID-19 and needed to miss the competitors. Workforce USA sitting volleyball will likely be defending gold in Paris, and is aiming for a 3rd consecutive gold medal.
Serio, 37, is the captain of the U.S. males’s wheelchair basketball group and will likely be a five-time Paralympian. He’s a three-time medalist, serving to Workforce USA win gold in Rio and in Tokyo. Serio, who has stated that Paris will likely be his ultimate Paralympic video games, will try to guide his group to a 3rd consecutive gold medal, which might be a Paralympic first.
There are 225 Team USA athletes in Paris for the 2024 Paralympics, with 141 being returning Paralympians. Paratriathlete Melissa Stockwell and wheelchair rugby participant Chuck Aoki, the Workforce USA flagbearers in Tokyo, are each returning to Paris as effectively.
The Opening Ceremony will happen subsequent week alongside the Champs-Élysées and within the Place de la Concorde, a public sq. close to the Louvre. Just like the Olympic Opening Ceremony, the Paralympic opening occasion will make historical past as the primary to happen outdoors of a stadium.
After the Opening Ceremony, the Paralympic Video games will happen from Aug. 29 to Sept. 8. In whole, the Video games will embrace 22 sports activities and 549 medal occasions.
