Bay Area Athletes to Watch at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games

The 2024 Olympic Games may be over (see: Tom Cruise on a motorcycle), but it’ll soon be time for the Paris Paralympics. Running Aug. 28–Sept. 8, the Paralympics involve 4,000 athletes from 177 countries duking it out across 22 sports and 549 medal events.

As always, Team USA, already in possession of more gold paralympic medals than any other country on Earth, looks set for success. And in case you want to play regional favorites, here are the incredible Bay Area athletes to root for.

Mark Barr

Hailing from Davis, Mark Barr possesses a fortitude that is borderline unfathomable. Always a sporty kid, he survived bone cancer at the age of 14, but lost his right leg to the disease. After his surgery, a nurse at the hospital — herself an amputee — told him about the Paralympics and encouraged him to go for the gold. Just four years later, Barr was competing in the 2004 games in Athens. (That nurse inspired him in more ways than one — Barr later became an ICU nurse too.)

Seeking an even greater challenge at the end of college, Barr decided to transition to triathlons. Once he acquired a prothesis allowing him to do so from the Challenged Athletes Foundation, there was no stopping him. In 2018, Barr was undefeated in the World Paratriathlon Series and won an ESPY award. Last year, he ticked off another life goal: becoming a dad.

Hannah Chadwick

UC Davis graduate Hannah Chadwick has been blind since birth, but she’s never let that hold her back. She is, after all, a tandem cyclist — one who didn’t even take up the sport until 2019. Her late arrival to cycling has done nothing to slow her down. Last year, the 32-year-old took home two gold medals from the Parapan American Games after winning the 1,000-meter and 3,000-meter races with her cycling partner of one year, Skyler Espinoza. Now the duo are heading to the Paralympics for the very first time.

Though born in China, Chadwick moved to Northern California at the age of 12, having been adopted by American parents.

“Growing up in Humboldt County taught me the importance of how to create and maintain a support network,” she told the Lost Coast Outpost last year. “I’m so grateful to everyone that encouraged me along the way. I was given many opportunities, and I’m so thankful to be a part of the community.”

Skyler Espinoza

Menlo Park-based Skyler Espinoza acts as Chadwick’s “pilot” on the race track — but cycling wasn’t always her first sport of choice. Throughout college, and during her time as a graduate student at Stanford, Espinoza was a rower. Even after graduating, she stayed at Stanford as a rowing coach. Espinoza came to cycling only after back surgery prompted her to get on a bike as part of her physiotherapy. She hasn’t looked back since.

“I think the pilot role really speaks to my values a lot in terms of supporting other athletes in sports,” Espinoza told U.S. Paracycling last year. “It’s a teammate role, it’s a little bit of a mentor role and coaching role because I’ve been an athlete for a long time and Hannah is a relatively new athlete. It’s been a really great opportunity.”

Noah Jaffe

This born-and-raised Californian has been a competitive swimmer since he was just 10 years old. Clearly, starting young pays off. Jaffe absolutely smashed his competitions at last year’s Paralympic Swimming World Championships: not only did he win four medals, including a gold, he also broke the American record for the 100-meter freestyle race.

That success inspired him to take a year out from his biochemistry studies at UC Berkeley and focus on training for the Paralympics, which he’s currently doing at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado.

“Being around a lot of Paralympic athletes … is new to me,” he recently told TeamUSA.com. “I’ve always trained with able-bodied athletes, so having that community and knowing this is a place for me, and being able to connect with them both in practice and outside of practice has been great.”

Jaffe was born with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, which restricts movement in both of his legs and right arm. Once he’s completed his studies, his goal is to work with young people living with similar conditions.

Mohamed Lahna

Born in Casablanca, educated in San Mateo and a current resident of Hayward, Mohamed Lahna simply cannot stop taking on new challenges — possibly because he’s making up for lost time. As a small child, he used crutches to play sports with friends. Through his teens, Lahna wasn’t allowed to participate in gym glass, having used an unbendable prosthetic made of wood and leather. He didn’t ride a bike until he was 23 years old. And yet, since he received his first running prosthetic in 2011, Lahna has been incapable of slowing down.

Within two years of getting that prosthetic, Lahna won his first International Triathlon Union paratriathlon. He also quickly discovered he was the kind of guy who could swim the Strait of Gibraltar, run marathons across the Sahara Desert, complete Ironman competitions and ride a bicycle from South America’s lowest point to its highest peak. Lahna will be competing in the triathlon in Paris — don’t expect a leisurely pace.

Bethany Zummo

This 31-year-old volleyball wizard from Dublin grew up playing standing volleyball despite losing her right foot at age 2. That turned out to be perfect training for her current job coaching girls at NorCal Volleyball Club in Livermore. It helps that Zummo is also currently at the top of her game in sitting volleyball, having won gold medals at the two Paralympics she has so far competed in — Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021.

Zummo now revels in being able to play both versions of the sport.

“I didn’t want to play sitting volleyball or an adaptive sport because I thought it was weird,” she once said, recalling her formative years. “I thought it was different, and all I wanted to do was fit in. I just want to be able to show my girls that it is so much more fun to stand out and be different. They don’t have to put so much pressure on themselves to be perfect … I’ve been exactly where they are.”

The next generation is clearly in great hands.

The 2024 Paralympic Games begin streaming on Peacock on Aug. 28, 2024. Select events will also be available to view via CNBC, E!, NBC and USA Network.