From August 29 until September 8, over 4,000 athletes with physical, visual or intellectual impairments will be competing in a variety of sports at the 2024 Paralympics that organizers say has already sold over two million tickets.
These paralympians come from all over the world, but five of them came from right here in the state of Arkansas.
Russellville native and Arkansas Tech graduate Kaitlin Bounds will be competing in long-distance running events in her first ever experience as a Paralympic athlete.
Olivia Chambers, a Little Rock native currently swimming at the University of Northern Iowa, will be competing in para swimming events. Though this is the first time Chambers has competed in the Paralypics, she won six medals at the 2023 World Championships.
Jillian Elwart of Little Rock will be joining the paralympians to compete in para canoe. Elwart got her start in para canoe in 2017 and works as a pediatric prosthetist for Shriners Hospitals for Children.
Mayflower native and two-time bronze medalist at the 2021 Paralympics, Julia Gaffney, will be competing in the para swimming events. Gaffney has been swimming competitively since 2015.
Hunter Woodhall, a Fayetteville resident and graduate at the University of Arkansas, will compete in the para track and field events. Woodhall shares a home in Fayetteville with his wife, Paris Olympics gold medalist Tara Davis-Woodhall. Hunter Woodhall himself is a three-time medalist in the Paralympics with a bronze medal in Tokyo in 2021 and a silver and bronze in Rio in 2016.
The 2024 Paralympics closing ceremony will be held at Stade de France, the national stadium.
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