Group USA completed third within the Paralympic medal rely. Listed here are the highlights

The Paralympics wrapped up on Sunday, ending 11 jam-packed days of competitors and a summer time of jaw-dropping athleticism in Paris.

And the outcomes are in.

China prolonged its two-decade-long Paralympic profitable streak, dominating each the general medal rely (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.

Group USA competed in 20 sports activities (out of twenty-two included on this 12 months’s Video games) and earned podium finishes in 16, based on the committee. Fifty-three American athletes gained their first Paralympic medals, and 29 left Paris with a couple of.

“We are so proud of Team USA and their incredible performances at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games,” stated Sarah Hirshland, the CEO of U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “Their determination and grit invigorated and inspired a proud nation and fans around the world, uniting us all through the transformative power of sport.”

Group USA swept swimming and monitor

The U.S. earned most of its medals in Para monitor and area (38 complete), adopted by swimming (30). It additionally gained massive in biking (8), triathlon (8) and equestrian (7).

On the monitor, Tatyana McFadden earned her twenty first medal to develop into the most embellished U.S. athlete within the sport. Roderick Townsend accomplished a three-peat within the males’s excessive bounce T47, taking house his third consecutive gold within the occasion since 2016, whereas Ezra Fech gained his first two gold medals in his second Video games.

And half of the fan-favorite energy coupleHunter-Woodhall gained gold within the males’s 400m T62 remaining, simply weeks after his spouse, Tara Davis-Woodhall, gained gold within the Olympic lengthy bounce.

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 embellished American Paralympian of all time.

“I’m coming towards the end of my career — I hope to end in LA,” she advised 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 report — regardless of dealing with 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 top notch who now has 9 profession Paralympic medals — together with Group USA’s first medal of the Paris Video games — served as one of many flag bearers at Sunday’s closing ceremony.

People prolonged profitable streaks and achieved notable firsts

It was a banner 12 months for group sports activities, with Group USA profitable repeat medals in lots of occasions.

The U.S. Para triathlon group gained eight medals, the perfect efficiency for any nation within the sport and the third 12 months in a row the U.S. has positioned first.

Group USA gained its third straight title in males’s wheelchair basketball — the primary nation to ever accomplish that — in addition to ladies’s sitting volleyball.

The ladies’s wheelchair basketball group gained silver for the primary time in 32 years. The storied wheelchair rugby group 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 embellished wheelchair rugby participant in U.S. historical past, whereas Sarah Adam made historical past as the primary American girl to win a Paralympic medal within the sport.

That’s one among many notable firsts for American athletes.

Duo Miles Krajewski and Jayci Simon — each 19 years previous — overcame the percentages and a sequence of logistical obstacles to develop into the primary U.S. athletes to medal within 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 grew to become the primary Paralympian to throw over 60 meters in discus F64 (which earned him his fourth discus gold medal), whereas Noelle Malkamaki grew to become the primary girl to throw over 14 meters within the shot put F46 (which gained her a gold medal and broke her personal world report). Liana Mutia grew to become the first American girl to medal in Para judo-57 kg.

And multi-sport athlete Oksana Masters repeated as champion in each of her particular person Para biking street race occasions, bringing her profession medal complete to 19 in 4 completely different sports activities — rowing, cross-country snowboarding, biathlon and biking — throughout each Winter and Summer time Video games.

Marriage proposals, the primary refugee group medals and different milestones

The Paralympics have been full of unbelievable athletic achievements, highly effective private tales and different significant milestones.

Athletes broke greater than 40 world data in lower than two weeks, from the monitor and pool to the biking enviornment and powerlifting bench.

Taekwondo athlete Zakia Khudadadi gained the Refugee Paralympic Group’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 properties.

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 grew to become the primary recognized pregnant athlete to make it to the Paralympic podium. She gained each the ladies’s particular person compound bronze and combined group gold “despite having to pause at times to reset her focus due to the baby kicking,” based on Olympics.com.

And among the many many memorable moments exterior of the competitors have been a whopping 4 marriage proposals to, by or between Paralympic athletes, a becoming motif for the “city of love.”

Preliminary numbers counsel that after a highly-watched Olympics in July, a lot of viewers stored up with the motion by means of September: Two million tickets to the Paralympics have been bought by the day of the opening ceremony, and British broadcaster Channel 4 stated 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 time Olympics and Paralympics will probably be held in Los Angeles in 2028.

Till then, now we have the 2026 Winter Video games in Italy to sit 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.