Meet 13 Minnesota athletes competing at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris
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Athletes with Minnesota ties will compete in the Paris Paralympic Games this summer, matching up with the best in the world in sports like sitting volleyball, wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball, para swimming, para track and field and more.
The Games’ opening ceremony is 1 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Aug. 28 and the closing ceremony is 2 p.m. CDT Sunday, Sept. 8.
Where to watch the Paralympics
Select events will be broadcasted on NBC, USA Network, E!, Telemundo, CNBC and the Golf Channel, as well as available through the NBC streaming service, Peacock.
Molly Solomon, NBC Olympics Production executive producer and president, said in a press release that the network plans to offer more than 1,500 hours of live coverage of the Paralympic Games.
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“We’ll have more commentators on the ground, more cameras at the venues, and more hours to watch than ever before, including everything on Peacock,” Solomon said.
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Jump to: Para Athletics | Wheelchair Basketball | Para Rowing | Wheelchair Rugby | Para Swimming | Para Table Tennis | Para Track and Field | Para Triathlon | Sitting Volleyball
Para Athletics
Josh Cinnamo, 43
Josh Cinnamo is heading to Paris to compete in men’s shot put in para athletics. It will be his second Paralympics – he won bronze in shot put at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021. He has also medaled at the World Championships, winning silver in 2023 and gold in 2019.
Cinnamo, who works for Minnesota IT Services, was born with a congenital limb deficiency of his right arm. He played football in college and did CrossFit, and started competing in shot put after attending a Paralympic talent camp in Chicago in 2014.
Wheelchair Basketball
Abby Bauleke, 23
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 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 Games. Along with Bauleke, she was part of Team USA that claimed 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 started playing wheelchair basketball at the age of 13 after seeing the basketball team practice while she was at an archery lesson at the Courage Center in Minneapolis.
Aslakson is 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.
Para Rowing
Sky Dahl, 21
Sky Dahl, who is from Minneapolis and attended Centennial High School, is heading to her first Paralympics to compete with Team USA in para-rowing. She’s taking her sport to the next level after winning a silver medal in the PR3 mixed four with coxswain at the 2023 World Rowing Championships, as well as gold in the same race at the 2023 International Para-Rowing Regatta to Paris.
She was born with bilateral club foot and played many sports including basketball until she broke her foot at 14 and had to take a break. She then found rowing, training at the Twin Cities Youth Rowing Center, and now rows for the University of Virginia.
Wheelchair Rugby
Chuck Aoki, 33
Chuck Aoki will count the Paris Games as his fourth Paralympics, being a competitor for every Summer Games since the 2012 London Games. He has helped the USA Wheelchair Rugby team claim two silver medals and a bronze medal, but is 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.
Aoki originally played wheelchair basketball but switched sports when he was 15. He credits the documentary “Murderball” for the inspiration to switch sports.
Para Swimming
Mallory Weggemann, 35
Mallory Weggemann of Eagan has been to the Paralympic games four times, with a total of four gold, two 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 back pain when she was 18. Only a few months after the procedure, she went to watch the U.S. Swim Team Trials competition for the 2008 Paralympic Games Beijing with a sister at the University of Minnesota Aquatics Center and decided to return to the sport.
Natalie Sims, 27
Natalie Sims of Edina is heading to her third Paralympic Games. She began her swimming career at age 13, and in four years became one of the fastest youth swimmers on the Minneapolis YWCA swim club, the Otters.
She won two gold medals (the 4x100m freestyle relay and the 4x100m medley relay) at the 2017 World Para Swimming Championships 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.
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.
In 2022, she won a bronze in the 400 freestyle at the World Para Swimming Championships.
Schmit was born with congenital disarticulation of the right wrist.
Para Table Tennis
Ian Seidenfeld, 23
Ian Seidenfeld will attend his second Paralympic competition after taking home a gold medal from Tokyo Games in the table tennis singles class six competition. Seidenfeld, who is from Lakeville and graduated from the University of Minnesota, has played table tennis since he was 5 years old, when his father organized a junior coaching program.
Seidenfeld also competed at the World Para Table Tennis Championships in 2018 and 2022, and placed fifth in each of those competitions.
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 in Duluth 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. Five months later, he arrived at the Beijing Paralympics to compete in Nordic skiing and the biathlon.
Pike has participated in both the 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 Skiing World Championships in the sitting 12.5K individual biathlon.
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 2008 Beijing Paralympics, Stockwell switched her focus to the triathlon. She has won four World Championship medals: a gold, two silvers and one bronze.
She was named a flagbearer along with fellow Minnesota Paralympian Chuck Aoki at the Tokyo Paralympics 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.
Sitting Volleyball
Alexis Shifflett-Patterson, 28
Alexis Shiflett-Patterson is a member of the U.S. women’s sitting volleyball team from Waseca and is returning for her third Paralympic Games. Her previous two trips were successful, since the U.S. team secured gold medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games and the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games.
As a member of the U.S. team, she has also helped the team secure two silver medals and one bronze medal at world championships between 2014 and 2022.