Team USA has selected sitting volleyball player Nicky Nieves and wheelchair basketball player Steve Serio as flagbearers for the 2024 Paris Paralympic games.
The two athletes will lead Team USA during the Paralympic Opening Ceremony, which takes place Wednesday in Paris. Both are returning gold medalists and will help Team USA defend gold medals.
Nieves, 34, will be competing in her second Paralympics after helping the U.S. sitting volleyball team to gold in 2016. Nieves was named to the initial roster for Tokyo in 2021, but tested positive for COVID-19 and had to miss the competition. Team USA sitting volleyball will be defending gold in Paris, and is aiming for a third consecutive gold medal.
Serio, 37, is the captain of the U.S. men’s wheelchair basketball team and will be a five-time Paralympian. He is a three-time medalist, helping Team USA win gold in Rio and in Tokyo. Serio, who has said that Paris will be his final Paralympic games, will attempt to lead his team to a third consecutive gold medal, which would 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 player Chuck Aoki, the Team USA flagbearers in Tokyo, are both returning to Paris as well.
The Opening Ceremony will take place next week along the Champs-Élysées and in the Place de la Concorde, a public square near the Louvre. Like the Olympic Opening Ceremony, the Paralympic opening event will make history as the first to take place outside of a stadium.
After the Opening Ceremony, the Paralympic Games will take place from Aug. 29 to Sept. 8. In total, the Games will include 22 sports and 549 medal events.
