13 cyclists selected to represent Team USA at the 2024 Paralympic Games
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO – U.S. Paralympics Cycling Monday announced the 13 athletes – seven men and six women – who will compete for Team USA at the Paralympic Games Paris 2024.
The team selection marks the culmination of a season of qualification events for both road and track cycling, ending with Sunday’s PossAbilities U.S. Paralympics Cycling Time Trial in Loma Linda, Calif., where nearly 40 athletes competed in the final road qualification event.
“I am incredibly optimistic about this team’s potential in Paris,” Ian Lawless, director, U.S. Paralympics Cycling, said. “Team USA is truly among the best countries in the world in Para-cycling, and to narrow it down to just 13 athletes for a Games was a very difficult process. As a program, we are so proud of not just these 13 athletes, but everyone who worked throughout the Paralympic quad to earn us points toward Games quotas.”
Making her team-high seventh Paralympic Games appearance is Oksana Masters (Louisville, Ky.), who will look to repeat the double gold medal performance she put together in Tokyo. Also a Winter Paralympian in Nordic skiing three times over, Masters has accumulated 17 career Paralympic medals.
Masters will be joined in the women’s handcycling classifications by world champion Kate Brim (Lowell, Mich.), who is set for her Paralympic debut after dominating the WH2 category since her first world championships in 2022. Brim won both time trial and road race gold at the world championships in 2022 and has gone on to win nearly every major WH2 race in which she has competed.
In similar fashion in the WC4 classification, Samantha Bosco (Claremont, Calif.) completes a triumphant comeback to the sport by earning a Paris roster spot. Bosco was named to the Tokyo team in 2021, but an injury prevented her from competing in what would have been her second Paralympic Games. The two-time Paralympic bronze medalist has since been on a revenge tour, capturing four road world titles in the past two years to go along with six worlds medals on the track.
Four-time Paralympic medalist Shawn Morelli (Meadville, Pa.) will also suit up for Team USA in the WC4 competitions in Paris, which will be her third Paralympic Games. A three-time Paralympic champion who has earned 16 world championship medals throughout her storied career, Morelli will look to repeat the road time trial gold medal she won in Tokyo and will also seek her first track Paralympic title since Rio 2016.
Rounding out the women’s team are two WC3 athletes with Paralympic experience. Paralympic champion Jamie Whitmore (Somerset, Calif.) returns to the Paralympic stage for her third Games, while world champion Clara Brown (Falmouth, Maine) earns her second Paralympic berth. Two of the top WC3 athletes in both track and road cycling, Whitmore and Brown have a combined 33 world championship medals between them.
On the men’s side, wheelchair basketball Paralympic champion Travis Gaertner (Burien, Wash.) makes a triumphant return to the Paralympic stage for the first time in 20 years. Gaertner last competed at the Paralympic Games as a member of Team Canada’s wheelchair basketball team, for which he won titles at the 2000 and 2004 Games. This will be his first Games as both a member of Team USA and as a Para-cyclist.
The only other male athlete with Paralympic experience for Team USA is Aaron Keith (Woodinville, Wash.), who won silver in the MC1 time trial on the road in Tokyo. Keith also has numerous world championships medals in both road and track disciplines.
Making his Paralympic debut is world champion Dennis Connors (Beaverton, Ore.), the sole tricyclist to qualify for Team USA. A former U.S. Marine, Connors has racked up three world championships medals and a Parapan American Games title in his short time in the sport.
Also making his first Paralympic roster is two-time world championships medalist Brandon Lyons (Mechanicsburg, Pa.), who has been a staple on the U.S. Paralympics Cycling National Team since 2019. Fellow Pennsylvanian Cody Wills (Harrisburg, Pa.) will join Lyons and Gaertner to round out the men’s handcyclists. Wills made his world championships debut in 2023 and will compete in the MH2 class.
Completing the men’s roster is track specialist Bryan Larsen (Windsor, Calif.) and 18-year-old Elouan Gardon (Acme, Wash.), both of whom are set for their first Paralympic Games. Larsen made his world championships debut in 2022 and won his first major international medals at the 2024 track world championships as an MC4 athlete. Gardon, meanwhile, is the youngest member of the team, and only recently discovered Para-cycling after competing against able-bodied athletes throughout his career.
Additionally, U.S. Paralympics Cycling named three non-traveling alternates – two men and one woman – to its roster. MC4 athlete Matt Tingley (Rochester Hills, Mich.) and MB athlete Branden Walton (Windsor, Calif.), along with his pilot Spencer Seggebruch (Saint Louis, Minn.) are the men’s alternates, while WB track specialist Hannah Chadwick (El Cerrito, Calif.) and her pilot Skyler Espinoza (Freeport, Maine) will serve as women’s alternates.
2024 U.S. Paralympic Cycling Team
Men
Dennis Connors
Travis Gaertner
Elouan Gardon
Aaron Keith
Bryan Larsen
Brandon Lyons
Cody Wills
Alternates: Matt Tingley and Branden Walton (with pilot Spencer Seggebruch).
Women
Samantha Bosco
Kate Brim
Clara Brown
Oksana Masters
Shawn Morelli
Jamie Whitmore
Alternate: Hannah Chadwick (with pilot Skyler Espinoza).
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