Meet the Minnesotans competing for Team USA at the Paris Paralympics

The Paralympics begin today, and a baker’s dozen athletes with Minnesota ties will represent the United States. It’s an exceptionally experienced group, with only one athlete who hasn’t been to the Paralympics and five who have been three times. One of them, a Winter and Summer Games participant, is headed to the Paralympics for the seventh time. ·The Paralympics will be televised on NBC, USA Network and CNBC and streamed on Peacock ($7.99 for a monthlong subscription) and NBCParalympics.com, NBC.com and the NBC Sports app (TV provider login required).

Minnesota connection: Minneapolis

Sport: Wheelchair rugby

Paralympic experience: 2012, 2016, 2021

Aoki, 33, has played for the United States since 2009, and he has been an advocate of adapted sports all along the way. These days he blogs for the International Paralympic Committee, and footage of him was prominent on the recent Olympics broadcasts. He was chosen to be a U.S. flag bearer for the Tokyo Games in 2021, and he led the U.S. in scoring in those Paralympics. He’s hugely successful as an athlete, but there’s a level he hasn’t reached: gold medalist. His team won silver in 2016 and 2021 and bronze in 2012. He does have a world championship on his record, from 2010.

Schedule: Aug. 29-Sept. 2

Minnesota connection: Edina, Jordan High School

Sport: Wheelchair basketball

Paralympic experience: 2021

Aslakson, 28, is a player and a coach; she has been head coach of the University of Arizona’s women’s wheelchair basketball program since 2021. She played there in college and also at Texas-Arlington. She played in five games in her first Paralympics, and the U.S. won the bronze medal. She since has won bronze in the 2023 world championships. She has a world championship in her past, in 2019 in the under-25 age group.

Schedule: Aug. 30-Sept. 8

Minnesota connection: Savage, Burnsville High

Sport: Wheelchair basketball

Paralympic experience: 2021

Her origin story involves restlessness: At 13, she got distracted by a wheelchair basketball game when she was at the Courage Center in Minneapolis for archery lessons. Since then, Bauleke, now 23, became the youngest member of the U.S. team that won the under-25 world championship in 2019 and was a Paralympics newcomer when she won bronze with the United States in Tokyo, appearing in two games and scoring two points. More medals have ensued. Her team won world championship bronze in 2022 and qualified for the Paralympics by winning gold at the 2023 Parapan American Games. This year she helped the University of Alabama win a fourth consecutive NWBA Women’s Intercollegiate Division national championship.

Schedule: Aug. 30-Sept. 8

Minnesota connection: Lakeville

Sport: Track and field

Paralympic experience: 2021

Cinnamo, 43, scored a bronze medal in shot put at the Tokyo Games, and he already had a gold medal from the world championships in 2019. He has since filled out the set with silver from the 2023 world championships. He finished fifth in the 2024 worlds. All of those came in shot put, but he’s also a discus thrower who reached the world championships in 2017. He held the world record for his shot put classification, F46, when he arrived in Tokyo. That mark since has been broken. Cinnamo played football at Luther College in Iowa and got involved with adapted sports in 2014.

Schedule: Sept. 4

Minnesota connections: Minneapolis, Centennial High

Sport: Rowing

Paralympic experience: First

Dahl and her teammates on the United States’ PR3 mixed four with coxswain crew won the silver medal in the 2023 world championships in her first year on the national team. She’s on the crew at the University of Virginia, where her second varsity eight boat won the ACC championship in 2023. Dahl spent three years learning rowing at the Twin Cities Youth Center.

Schedule: Aug. 30-Sept. 1

Minnesota connection: Elysian

Sport: Wheelchair basketball

Paralympics experience: 2012, 2016, 2021

She’s headed to her fourth Paralympics after getting her start in 2012 as a 15-year-old, the youngest member of the U.S. team. She has Paralympic gold from 2016 and bronze from 2021, when she ranked in the tournament’s top eight in points, rebounds and assists. Hollerman, 28, plays professionally in Spain for a team on the Canary Islands, and she’s a two-time collegiate champion at Texas-Arlington. She has played in the past three world championships and won bronze in 2023. Her time in adapted sports began at the Courage Center in Minneapolis; she started playing wheelchair basketball in 2004.

Schedule: Aug. 30-Sept. 8

Minnesota connection: Park Rapids

Sport: Track and field

Paralympic experience: summer, 2012, 2016, 2021; winter, 2014, 2018, 2022

If it’s summer, Pike, 38, must be a marathoner. When the snow flies, he’s a Nordic skier. Whatever the season, for a dozen years he’s represented the United States at the highest levels of adapted sports. His best Paralympics finish has been sixth place, but his success rate at world championships has been much higher. He has seven medals from worlds: two gold, three silver and two bronze. If you’re wondering how tough it gets being a two-season Paralympian (or maybe how fun?), consider: He competed in two Paralympics in six months, thanks to the one-year postponement of the Tokyo Games.

Schedule: Sept. 8.

Minnesota connection: Stillwater, Gophers

Sport: Swimming

Paralympic experience: 2021

Schmit, 21, heads into her second Paralympics after a strong trials in Minneapolis, where she produced the best qualifying times in her classification in the 100 breaststroke, 200 individual medley and 400 freestyle. Schmit’s best finish of her five events in the Tokyo Games was fifth in the S9 200-meter individual medley, and she reached the finals in two other events. She has competed in the world championships twice and has a bronze in the S9 400 freestyle from 2022 to show for it. She’s competed for two years at the University of Minnesota, where she already has earned a psychology degree. That pace is pretty much in line with her life: She has been winning medals at international swim meets since she was 13.

Schedule: Aug. 29-Sept 7

Minnesota connections: Lakeville, Lakeville North High, University of Minnesota

Sport: Table tennis

Paralympic experience: 2021

Seidenfeld, 23, competed in the Tokyo Games at age 20 and won gold in Class 6 men’s singles. He’s the son of a Paralympic gold medalist, Mitchell Seidenfeld, and began playing table tennis at age 5 when his dad started a coaching program. In Tokyo, Ian knocked off the defending champion and world No. 1, Peter Rosenmeier of Denmark, 3-0 in the final. That made him the first U.S. gold medalist in para table tennis since 1996. Seidenfeld’s best finish in his two appearances at the world championships was fifth in Class 6 singles in 2022. He studied at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.

Schedule: Sept. 1-7

Minnesota connection: Waseca

Sport: Sitting volleyball

Paralympics past: 2016, 2021

At 28, Shifflett-Patterson, a 5-4 setter and libero who played softball and volleyball at Waseca High School, is a two-time Paralympic gold medalist in two tries. Her first one came at age 16, a year after she took up sitting volleyball. In three world championships, she has won two silver medals and a bronze.

Schedule: Aug. 30-Sept. 7

Minnesota connections: Edina

Sport: Swimming

Paralympic experience: 2016, 2021

Sims, 27, dropped swimming after the Tokyo Games, but she returned to the pool last year, citing “unfinished business.” That was driven by her best finish in Tokyo, seventh in the S9 100 freestyle, and her belief she can win a medal in that event in Paris. She placed second in four events at the trials in Minneapolis and third in another. Sims, who joined the Minneapolis Otters YMCA swim club when she was 13, has hefty international success on her record: two gold and three bronze medals at the 2017 world championships, and three medals — including gold in the 100 freestyle — at the 2019 Parapan American Games.

Schedule: Aug. 29-Sept 7

Minnesota connection: Eden Prairie High

Sport: Paratriathlon

Paralympics past: 2008, 2016, 2021

Stockwell, 44, has won three world championships in paratriathlon since taking it up after starting her adapted sports career as a swimmer. She’s an award-winner of another sort, too, the recipient of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star after she lost a leg to a roadside bomb during her Army deployment in Iraq in 2004. She has won a single Paralympics medal, bronze in 2016. She was picked to bear the United States flag in Tokyo’s opening ceremony and finished fifth in those Games.

Schedule: Sept. 1.

Minnesota connection: Eagan

Sport: Swimming

Paralympic experience: 2012, 2016, 2021

Headed to her fourth Paralympics and with five medals (three gold, one silver, one bronze) already in hand, Weggemann, 35, took on extra duties this summer. She was the first paraplegic athlete to host NBC’s studio coverage of the Olympics, an extension of her years as a motivational speaker. At the trials in Minneapolis, Weggemann won three events in her classification, the 50 butterfly, 200 IM and 50 freestyle. She’s 17 medals deep in world championships, and 15 are gold. Weggemann also became a mother since the Tokyo Games. She has been USA Swimming’s Disabled Athlete of the Year three times.

Schedule: Aug. 29-Sept 7