Meet the summer Olympians and Paralympians with Minnesota ties headed for Paris
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More than 40 athletes competing in the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic games, representing various countries, have connections to Minnesota — whether they live here, train here or were born here.
The athletes are competing in basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, swimming, taekwondo and more.
MPR News will be tracking how the athletes with Minnesota ties are doing throughout the Paris Games. Check back here frequently for updates on competitions and who made it to the podium.
The Paris Summer Olympics begin July 26 and run through Aug. 11. The Paralympic Games start Aug. 28 and run through Sept. 8.
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Jump to: Basketball | Wheelchair Basketball | Gymnastics | Sailing
Taekwondo | Cycling | Track and Field | Para Track and Field
Marathon | Golf | Swimming | Para Swimming | Diving
Wheelchair Rugby | Para Table Tennis | Para Triathlon | Soccer
Volleyball | Sitting Volleyball | Beach Volleyball
Basketball
Napheesa Collier, 27
Back on Team USA after securing a gold medal in Tokyo, Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx will participate in her second Summer Olympics.
Originally from Jefferson City, Mo., Collier was picked by the Lynx as the No. 6 pick overall in the 2019 draft. She was also a member of the 2019 FIBA AmeriCup gold medal team, and was named the 2019 Rookie of the Year by the Associated Press, ESPNW and the WNBA.
Anthony Edwards, 22
Star Timberwolves player Anthony Edwards will play on the men’s basketball team for the U.S. Edwards has played three seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves and one season at the University of Georgia, where he was the top scoring freshman in the nation in the 2019-20 season with an average of 19.1 points per game.
In 2023, Edwards led Team USA to fourth place in the FIBA Men’s World Cup with an average 18.9 points per game and started in all eight games, leading the team in scoring and in minutes played.
This is Edwards’ first Olympics competition.
Bridget Carleton, 27
Bridget Carleton, a forward for the Minnesota Lynx, will make her second trip to the Olympic Games playing for Team Canada. Carleton first played in the WNBA for the Connecticut Sun but was soon signed by the Lynx in her rookie year in 2019.
In 2020, she ranked seventh in the WNBA for three-point accuracy at 45.7 percent — the second-highest percentage in Lynx franchise history. And in 2021, she was one of two players to appear in all 32 games for the Lynx, starting in 10 of those games.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker, 25
Timberwolves shooting guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker will join Team Canada to compete for Olympic glory on the basketball court. A native of Toronto, Alexander-Walker played for Virginia Tech for two seasons before being drafted into the NBA by the Brooklyn Nets. He then played for the New Orleans Pelicans and the Utah Jazz before joining the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2023.
This will be his first trip to an Olympic competition, but he did play with Team Canada in 2021 to try to qualify for the Tokyo games.
Rudy Gobert, 32
The towering 7-foot-1-inch Timberwolves center will play for France for a second Summer Olympics. He was part of the 2020 Tokyo team that gave Team USA a strong challenge.
During the round-robin play, France beat USA 83-76, breaking a 25-game Olympic win streak for Team USA. The two teams faced each other again for the gold medal with the Americans securing the win and Gobert and France taking home silver medals.
Gobert’s career in the NBA started with the Utah Jazz in 2013. He joined the Timberwolves in 2022. He has received seven NBA All-Defensive First Team honors and has been the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year four times, including in 2024. He was key to the Timberwolves playoff success last season.
Joe Ingles, 37
Joe Ingles is a four-time Olympian who just signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves and will play for Team Australia in Paris. Ingles helped the Australians secure a bronze medal win in Tokyo.
Ingles played with the Orlando Magic previously, but has played in the NBA for the past 10 seasons, including with the Utah Jazz and Milwaukee Bucks.
Alanna Smith, 27
Alanna Smith, a forward who will play for Team Australia, recently joined the Minnesota Lynx after playing with the Chicago Sky, the Indiana Fever and three seasons with the Phoenix Mercury. Smith played college ball for Stanford College Australia from 2015-19.
Smith also played for the Adelaide Lightning in the Women’s National Basketball of Australia in 2021-22.
Nuni Omot, 29
Nuni Omot will play for South Sudan in that country’s first competition at any Olympic Games. South Sudan finished as the top African team in the FIBA World Cup, qualifying the team for a spot in the games. Omot was the team’s second leading scorer on the team with an average of 14.4 points per game.
Born in a refugee camp in Nairobi, Kenya, Nuni Omot moved with his family in 1996 to Mahtomedi. Omot earned all-conference and honorable mention all-state titles for his senior year playing basketball for Mahtomedi High School. He went on to play at Concordia then joined Indian Hills Community College before transferring to Baylor for his last two seasons of college eligibility.
Omot has also played with teams in leagues from Turkey, Puerto Rico, Egypt, France, China and Israel.
Wheelchair basketball
Abby Bauleke, 22
Abby Bauleke of Savage returns to her second Paralympic competition after claiming a bronze medal with Team USA at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. She also joined Team USA at the 2023 Worlds Competition for wheelchair basketball, where the team earned bronze.
Bauleke has played with the Minnesota Jr. Timberwolves from 2012-20, and in 2019 was part of the gold medal team for the U25 World Championship. She played basketball in college for the University of Alabama.
Josie Aslakson, 28
Josie Aslakson is from Jordan and is participating in her second Paralympic competition. Along with Bauleke, she joined Team USA to claim a bronze at the Tokyo Games. She was also a member of the gold medal team at the 2019 U25 World Championship and the bronze medal team at the 2023 Worlds Competition with Bauleke.
She discovered basketball at the age of 13 while attending the Courage Center in Minneapolis after seeing the basketball team practice while she was at an archery lesson.
Aslakson is now the head coach of the women’s wheelchair basketball team at the University of Arizona.
Rose Hollermann, 28
Rose Hollermann is from Mankato and has been a member of Team USA’s wheelchair basketball team since 2016 when the national team won gold at the Rio Paralympic Games. She was also the youngest player to be selected for Team USA’s wheelchair basketball team in 2011 at age 15 and competed with the team in the 2012 London Games.
Gymnastics
Sunisa Lee, 22
Returning Olympic all-around gold medalist Sunisa Lee of St. Paul will be part of Team USA’s gymnastic squad in her return to the Olympics. She also took home a silver and bronze medal during her Tokyo competition.
Returning to the Olympics has been a challenge for Lee, who has been recovering from a health crisis with kidney disease that was first diagnosed in 2022. After treatment with doctors at Mayo Clinic and a gradual return to competition, Lee qualified to join Team USA in Paris.
Lee is the 10th-most decorated American female gymnast with six World Championships and three Olympic medals. In 2019, Lee won a gold in the team competition, silver in the floor exercise, and bronze in the uneven bars.
Depending on how the competition goes in Paris, Lee could potentially have a high caliber skill named after her in the International Gymnastics Federation’s Code of Points as “The Lee,” according to the Star Tribune. Lee shared her practicing the move on her Instagram account back in January.
Shane Wiskus, 25
Shane Wiskus, who was born in Waconia and grew up in Spring Park, will serve as an alternate on the men’s gymnastics team for Team USA.
In 2023, Wiskus secured a silver medal for the floor exercise and bronze for the parallel bars at the Winter Cup. And in 2024, he claimed a silver for the all-around competition and a bronze for the floor exercise and high bar competition at the Winter Cup.
Wiskus was on the U.S. men’s team for the 2019 world championships and carried his success into 2020. He was second in the all-around at February’s Winter Cup in Las Vegas, then he finished fourth in all-around at the American Cup, an international meet in March.
Wiskus and the U.S. finished in fifth place in the men’s team competition in Tokyo.
Ava Stewart, 18
This is Ava Stewart’s second trip to the Olympic Games on behalf of Team Canada. Stewart first traveled to the Olympics at the Tokyo 2020 games. She recently joined the University of Minnesota gymnastics team and will begin competing in the NCAA competition for the 2025 season. Born in Lebanon, Tenn., she moved to Bowmanville, Ontario, when she was 4.
Stewart finished third in the all-around at the Canadian Championships in 2022, and helped Canada claim a bronze team medal at the Pan American Championships. In 2023, Stewart was the runner-up in the all-around and gold medal for the uneven bars at the Canadian Championships. She was also a part of the team when Canada finished 12th overall in the 2023 Worlds competition.
Sailing
Lara Dallman-Weiss, 35
Lara Dallman-Weiss of Shoreview learned to sail on White Bear Lake at age 6 and began to sail competitively at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla. While there, she won third place at the 2010 women’s nationals and earned the Crew and Skipper of the Year award.
On her second competitive visit to the Olympics, Dallman-Weiss is set to make history, participating in the first co-ed sailing event in the history of the Olympic Games. She has participated in newly formed mixed racing events with her teammate and five-time Olympian Stu McNay from Rhode Island.
Dallman-Weiss has also been a competitor in the world championship circuit, wining a bronze in 2014 in the Match Racing competition for women.
Taekwondo
Alasan Ann, 23
Alasan Ann, a Taekwondo athlete from Maple Grove who’s father is of Gambian nationality, will compete under the Gambian flag. Ann is the first Gambian to earn an Olympic berth in taekwondo. He has been a part of the U.S. national team before, but was approved to represent Gambia in 2022.
Ann has won the World Junior Championship in Burnaby in 2016, and in the world competition has taken ninth place in 2023, and fifth place in 2022.
Ann has also opened his own Taekwondo school, World Taekwondo Academy in Andover.
Four months before the Olympic qualifier for Paris, Ann was with friends in Minneapolis when a shooting happened and he was struck in the leg.
“That moment right there scared me because it really made me realize that even after all the hard work, anything can be taken from you,” he told Olympics.com. “You can’t take anything for granted, you just got to thank God.”
Cycling
Alise Willoughby, 33
A three-time Olympic competitor with a silver medal from the Rio de Janeiro games in 2016, Alise Willoughby is aiming for another chance at gold after two crashes in the BMX racing semi-finals ended her shot for a medal at the Tokyo Games.
She won her third world title in BMX racing — tying the record of most women’s world titles — at the world championship in Rock Hill, S.C., with her previous titles from 2017 and 2019.
She and her family have been central to transforming Pineview Park BMX in St. Cloud, her hometown, into one of the top BMX facilities in the country.
Willoughby has had her fair share of scrapes, which isn’t uncommon in the BMX circuit. She’s recovered from multiple surgeries, including an LCL, knee and hamstring reconstruction before the London Olympics in 2012, ad a broken tibia plateau three months before the 2014 world championship.
Her husband, Sam Willoughby, after suffering a C6 spinal cord injury weeks before the 2016 Rio Olympics, now serves as Willoughby’s coach, and their relationship and training have been featured in two documentaries, “Every Pedal With You” in 2015, and “RIDE: A brutal Fairytaile” released in 2022.
Track and Field
Payton Otterdahl, 28
Payton Otterdahl hails from Rosemount and is headed for his second Olympics competition in track and field in the shot put event.
In 2023, Otterdahl took fifth place at the World Championship in shot put. Prior to that, his best finish was 10th at the Tokyo Olympic games.
As a member of the North Dakota State University track team, Otterdahl won two indoor national titles.
Matthew Wilkinson, 25
Matthew Wilkinson qualified for the 3000-meter steeplechase race after finishing second at the U.S. Olympic Trials.
While Wilkinson didn’t have an automatic qualifying standard time — he finished the trials with a time of 8:16.59, compared to the Olympic standard of 8:15.00 — Wilkinson was within the world ranking qualifying
Wilkinson had a successful college career, racing in Division III at Carleton College in Northfield before he transferred to the University of Minnesota, where he became a two-time Big Ten Champion in 2023 after winning the 3000 steeplechase and left the university with the second-best time in program history with 8:23.69.
Devin Augustine, 20
Devin Augustine is a sprinter for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers track and field team who will run for the Trinidad & Tobago national team in the 100-meter dash.
Augustine has won the Big Ten title. He set a school record in June in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.05 seconds. He’s also a two-time Trinidad & Tobago National Champion in the same sprint category.
He also represented his country in 2023 at the Central American and Caribbean Games in 20923, which also resulted in a gold medal from that competition.
Akeem Sirleaf, 27
Akeem Sirleaf is one of four teammates from Team Liberia with Minnesota ties that qualified for the men’s 4x100-meter relay team. Sirleaf, from St. Paul and a graduate from North St. Paul High School in 2015, led the team in their qualifying race. He experienced an injury at the African Championships, and will attend the Olympics as an alternate for the men’s 4x100.
Sirleaf ran track in college at North Carolina A&T from 2018 until he graduated in 2021. It’s his first trip to the Olympics.
Emmanuel Matadi, 33
This won’t be Emmanuel Matadi’s first trip to the Olympic Games for Team Liberia. He competed in the 2016 Rio Games in two sprint events and returned for the games in Tokyo. He was also a flag bearer for Liberia in the opening ceremony.
Originally from Monrovia, Liberia, Matadi eventually attended Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he won national titles in the 100- and 200-meter race. He currently holds Liberian national records for the 100 and both the indoor 60 and 200.
He’ll participate in the 100-meter dash and the 4x100 meter relay team.
Jabez Reeves, 21
Jabez Reeves is another member of the Liberian 4x100-meter relay team heading to the Olympics in Paris. He attends Minnesota State University, Mankato. His teammate, Matadi, will run with him on the 4x100 team, along with Joseph Fahnbulleh and Akeem Sirleaf.
Reeves is originally from Woodbridge, Va., and is still attending Minnesota State, Mankato. In March, he won the 200-meter dash at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field Championships.
He’ll participate in the 4x100.
Joseph Fahnbulleh, 22
Joseph Fahnbulleh graduated from Hopkins High School in 2019 and is a two-time NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash for the University of Florida.
This is Fahnbulleh’s second trip to the Olympics, where he will compete in the summer games for Liberia, the country his parents emigrated from. In Tokyo, Fahnbulleh finished fifth in the 200 with a time of 19.98 seconds, setting a new Liberian national record. He also was given the honor to be a flag bearer for Liberia in the opening ceremony.
He placed fourth in the 2022 World Athletics Championship in the 200 with a time of 19.84 in the final. He secured the bronze medal in the 4x100-meter relay at the 2023 African Games and gold in both the 100- and 200-meter dash at the 2024 African Championships in Douala, Cameroon.
He’ll compete in both the 200 and in the 4x100.
Denisha Cartwright, 24
Denisha Cartwright, a senior athlete for Minnesota State University, Mankato, will run for the Bahamas’ Olympic Team in the 100-meter hurdles.
It’s her first trip to the Olympics, but Cartwright has had a strong career with the Mavericks track and field team. She holds the NCAA Division II record in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 7.93 seconds, and collected eight All-American honors, including national championships in the indoor 60 hurdles, the outdoor 100 hurdles and the outdoor 200-meter dash.
Para Track and Field
Aaron Pike, 38
Aaron Pike of Park Rapids stands out among the Minnesota athletes competing in the Games. Pike is a six-time Paralympian and has competed in both the Summer and Winter games. He qualified for his seventh Paralympics after a strong finish at the New York City Marathon.
He has placed first in the Grandma’s Marathon five times and in 2022 he set the national marathon record with a time of 1:20:02.
At the Tokyo Paralympics, Pike raced in four events, getting sixth place in the marathon event. Then five months later, he arrived at the Beijing Paralympics to compete in Nordic skiing and the biathlon.
Pike has participated in both Summer and Winter Games since 2012, when he was invited to a training camp by one of the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing National Team coaches.
In 2023, Pike won his first world title by claiming a gold medal at the Para Nordic World Championships in the sitting 12.5K individual biathlon.
Marathon
Dakotah Lindwurm, 29
Dakotah Lindworm is from St. Francis and qualified for the U.S. Marathon team after placing third in the team trials in Orlando, Fla. She is a two-time winner of Grandma’s Marathon — 2021 and 2022 — and has placed 14th in the Boston Marathon and 12th in the Chicago Marathon. She also took second in the Twin Cities Marathon in 2019.
Lindwurm graduated from St. Francis High School in 2013 and attended college at Northern State University in South Dakota, where she walked onto the cross country team. In 2017, she joined the Minnesota Distance Elite, a training group based in the Twin Cities, coached by Chris Lundstrom, a three-time Olympic trials qualifier in the Marathon.
Golf
Erik van Rooyen, 34
Erik van Rooyen, a former golfer for the Golden Gophers, will represent South Africa in the Paris Olympics golf competition. He’s from Oudtshoorn, South Africa.
He was a three-time NCAA regional qualifier during his time at the U, and finished three times among the top 10 at the Big Ten Championships.
Now he plays as a pro in both the European Tour and the PGA Tour, with two wins in the PGA and three wins in international competitions. His first PGA Tour win was in 2021 in the Barracuda Championship, and in November of 2023, van Rooyen won the World Wide Technology Championship.
Swimming
Regan Smith, 22
Regan Smith of Lakeville already has three Olympic medals to her name, but she’s aiming to add a gold to her collection.
At the Tokyo Olympic Games, Smith won two silver medals — one in the 200 butterfly race, the other in the 4x100 medley relay — as well a bronze medal in the 100 backstroke.
Since the last Olympics, she’s continued to push on in the competitive swimming competitions, with five gold, three silver and a bronze medal from various world championships between 2019 and 2023.
She also set a world record — again — in the 100 backstroke during her qualifying race at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Indianapolis in June.
Bar Soloveychik, 23
Bar Soloveychik, a University of Minnesota junior on the men’s swimming team, will compete at the Olympics for Israel. Soloveychik grew up in Kiryat Motzkin and holds national records for the 400 freestyle and 800 freestyle race. He also broke the Gophers’ long-standing record for the 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 8 minutes, 54.69 seconds.
Soloveychik said he began swimming when he was 12 years old. Soloveychik missed a chance to make the Israeli Olympic team by a margin of 1 second, then opted to attend the University of Minnesota.
Para Swimming
Mallory Weggemann, 35
Mallory Weggemann of Eagan has been to the Paralympic games three times, with a total of three gold, one silver and one bronze medal to show for her efforts.
In Tokyo, Weggemann won gold in the 100 Backstroke S7, and the 200 individual medley SM7, plus a silver medal in the 50 Butterfly S7 race.
She also has a total of 17 medals from world championships dating back to 2009.
Weggemann has been a swimmer since age 7, but was paralyzed from a medical procedural error after an epidural injection to treat backpain when she was 18. Only a few months after the procedure, she went to watch the U.S. Swim Team Trials competition with a sister at the University of Minnesota Aquatics Center and decided to return to the sport.
Summer Schmit, 20
Summer Schmit of Stillwater is headed to her second Paralympic games, her first being the 2020 Tokyo Games. She began swimming competitively when she was 11 with the St. Croix Swim Club and competed in her first Can-Am Open at age 12 in Bismarck, N.D.
Schmit has been collecting more hardware at a number of different competitions. In 2022, she won a bronze in the 400 freestyle and at the World Para Swimming competition in 2019, she finished first in the 200 individual medley, second in the 400 freestyle and 100 butterfly, and fourth in the 100 breaststroke and 100 freestyle.
Schmit was born with congenital disarticulation of the right wrist.
Natalie Sims, 27
Natalie Sims of Edina will head to her third Paralympic Games. She began her swimming career at age 13, and in four years became one of the fastest youth swimmers for her YWCA swim club, the Minneapolis Otters.
She won two gold medals (the 4x100 freestyle relay and the 4x100 medley relay) at the 2017 World Championship and three bronze medals (100 freestyle, 400 freestyle and 50 freestyle). She also has a silver medal from the Parapan American Games in Santiago in the 100 freestyle.
Fun fact: Sims’ cousin, Dragomir Cioroslan of Romania, secured a bronze medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Games in weight lifting.
Diving
Sarah Bacon, 27
Sarah Bacon began diving in 2004 and will attend the Paris Olympics to compete in the 3-meter springboard competition as well as the synchronized 3-meter springboard with her diving partner Kassidy Cook.
As a member of the University of Minnesota dive team who’s originally from Indianapolis, Bacon has won numerous NCAA and Big Ten championships as a Golden Gopher, both in the 1-and 3-meter dive competitions. She also claimed two silver medals at the World Championship level: in 2019 and in 2022, both in the 1-meter springboard competition.
Wheelchair Rugby
Chuck Aoki, 33
Chuck Aoki will count the Paris Games as his fourth Paralympics competition, being a competitor since the 2012 London Games. He has helped the USA wheelchair rugby team claim two silver medals and a bronze medal, but is still aiming for gold at the Paralympic stage.
Aoki helped lead the U.S. national team to a gold medal at the ParaPan Games in 2019.
He was also named a flagbearer along with fellow Minnesota Paralympian Melissa Stockwell at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
Originally interested in wheelchair basketball at 6 years old, Aoki has played wheelchair rugby since he switched sports when he was 15. He credits the documentary “Murderball” for the inspiration to switch sports.
Para Table Tennis
Ian Seidenfeld, 22
Ian Seidenfeld will attend his second Paralympic competition after taking home a gold medal from Tokyo in the table tennis singles class six competition. Seidenfeld has played table tennis since he was 5 years old, when his father organized a junior coaching program.
Besides his gold medal, Seidenfeld has also attended the World Championship in 2018 and 2022, but in those years he placed fifth in each of his competitions.
Para Triathlon
Melissa Stockwell, 44
U.S. Army veteran Melissa Stockwell is a four-time Paralympic triathlon athlete and has one bronze medal in the paratriathlon from 2016.
She first qualified to compete in 2008 as a swimmer, but after the Beijing 2008 games, Stockwell switched her focus to the triathlon. She has won four medals while competing in the World Championship: a gold, two silvers and one bronze.
She was also named a flagbearer along with fellow Minnesota Paralympian Chuck Aoki at the Tokyo Games in 2021. She also served as a flag bearer for the closing ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing games.
Although Stockwell used to live in Eden Prairie, she and her family moved to Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2019 as part of a residential program to train at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
Soccer
Michael Boxall, 35
Michael Boxall, the Minnesota United defender, is from Auckland, New Zealand, and plays for the New Zealand national team for the Olympics competition. This will be his third Olympics, although due to an injury, he didn’t play in the 2020 Tokyo Games. As a member of the New Zealand team, Boxall played at the Beijing 2008 Games, the first time the team qualified for the Games in the sport.
Boxall joined Minnesota United in 2017 and has made 201 appearances across all competitions, the most of any member of the club since it joined Major League Soccer. He also has six goals with the Loons.
Volleyball
Jordan Thompson, 27
Jordan Thompson of Edina returns to the U.S. volleyball roster after a strong debut at her first Olympic games in Tokyo that was sadly cut short after she suffered a sprained ankle. Her efforts helped the women’s volleyball team earn its first gold medal in the sport by sweeping Brazil in three matches.
Since the previous Olympic games, Thompson began a professional volleyball career, playing in Turkey at Vakıfbank Istanbul club. However, Thompson’s injury worsened, and she ended up on the bench to recover for the rest of the season.
Airi Miyabe, 25
Airi Miyabe, a former Golden Gophers volleyball player from Osaka, Japan, now plays on the Japan women’s volleyball team.
During her tenure at University of Minnesota, Miyabe received Academic All-Big Ten commendations in 2019, 2020 and 2021. She ranked third on the team with 2.97 kills per set, and played in 27 matches for the team.
Sitting Volleyball
Alexis Shifflett, 28
Alex Shiflett is a member of the women’s sitting volleyball team from Waseca and is returning for her third Paralympic Games. Her previous two trips can be considered successful, since the U.S. team secured two gold medals over the past two Paralympic Games.
As a member of the U.S. team, she has also helped the team secure two silver medals and one bronze medal between 2014 and 2022.
Beach Volleyball
Chase Budinger, 36
A former member of the Minnesota Timberwolves team, Chase Budinger is heading to the Olympic games on a team with Miles Evans as the No. 2 U.S. men’s pair for beach volleyball.
Budinger is a first time Olympian, along with his teammate Evans, and the other American men pair, Miles Partain and Andy Benesh.
As a professional basketball player, Budinger played forward from 2009-17 for four different teams. He started with the Houston Rockets, then the Timberwolves, then headed to the Indiana Paces and the Phoenix Suns.
MPR News producer Aleesa Kuznetsov contributed to this report.
Correction (July 26, 2024): An earlier version of this story mistakenly included an athlete who is not going to the 2024 Paris Olympics. That athlete has been removed. It also misspelled the names of Paralympians Abby Bauleke and Josie Aslakson.