The Paralympics are coming to LA. But has the US done enough to guarantee success?

The Guardian

12 hours ago

Although he came up just short in one of the most thrilling events of last weekend's US Track and Field Outdoor Championships, Miguel Jimenez-Vergara could still take satisfaction in a crowd-pleasing performance.
Competing for the first time at the famous Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, the 24-year-old waged a tense tactical war over 5000m with the US's fastest wheelchair racers. Entering the final lap, Jimenez-Vergara vaporized a tightly packed field with a ferocious acceleration that energized the crowd. Only one competitor could rise to the challenge: reigning Paralympic gold medalist Daniel Romanchuk. Jimenez-Vergara still led by a wheel as they rocketed through the final turn at more than 20 mph; Romanchuk caught him in the final 50m and won by a tenth of a second.
It was an exhilarating show, and worthy of the big-league setting. But Jimenez-Vergara rejected attempts to spin it as a triumph.
'I just want to win,' he said. 'I'm not here to soak up the fans or soak up the atmosphere. I know you probably want me to say I'm excited to be at Hayward and get more visibility [for disabled athletes]. And we do need more eyes on us. But for me, I'll race in the parking lot. I just want to beat the guy next to me. I just want to be the best.'
That sums up both the promise and the pitfalls of the weekend's historic championship. For the first time, USA Track and Field showcased America's Paralympic talent on the sport's biggest stage, side by side with their better-known, better-paid Olympic teammates. It's a clear win for parasports equity, one that recognizes disabled competitors as supremely gifted athletes rather than novelty acts.
But it's a largely symbolic victory, and glaringly overdue. Achieving the type of success Jimenez-Vergara hungers for – global dominance in paratrack – will require more than splashy gestures toward inclusion. It will take a level of money and commitment far beyond what Team USA has previously invested in parasports. There's urgency to post a high medal count when the Paralympics come to US soil in Los Angeles three years from now. But time is short, and talk is cheap.
'Seeing the integration actually happen is really cool,' says sprinter Jarryd Wallace, a four-time Paralympian and longtime advocate for equity. 'It shows how much growth there has been. But in order to make the heights climb even higher, we've got to keep asking questions. No one really knows the right direction yet. We're finding out what the needs are, what the resources and opportunities are. And I think it's going to catapult us to places we've never seen US parasport before.'
The places we have seen US parasport before can generously be described as third-rate. Until last year, national championships and Paralympic trials were routinely staged at high school and community-college tracks that lacked accessibility accommodations for the athletes, media hookups for journalists, and comfort amenities for the public. The stands (if there were any) were inevitably empty. The tracks themselves were often an embarrassment.
'The venues haven't been so great in the past,' says Tatyana McFadden, one of US paratrack's most recognizable stars and the winner of 22 Paralympic track and field medals, a US record. 'Long-jump pits have not been the right size. There have been holes in the track and not enough water for the athletes.' The 2024 national meet and Paralympic trials were held at top-notch facilities – but only after Paralympians filed a formal grievance following the 2023 national championships. Going forward, it'll be Hayward Field every year.
'It's nice when you can just go out and compete without worrying if there's a divot in your lane,' says McFadden. 'It's good to be treated like elite athletes. We deserve this.'
US paraathletes also deserve the same pay as their non-disabled peers, and they've made some progress on that front – since 2021, Paralympic medal bonuses have been equivalent to Olympic bonuses (they were one-fifth as large previously). But performance-based compensation in other major para events continues to lag. So do stipends for travel, training, equipment, and living expenses.
Given their relative dearth of resources, US paratrack athletes have compiled an admirable record of international success. While they haven't matched the preeminence of their Olympic comrades – who have led the world in track medals (overall and gold) at every Olympics since 1992 – US Paralympians have brought home 212 track medals this century, more than every nation except China. They hold dozens of world records. It's an impressive ledger, but other countries have been catching up or surging ahead in recent cycles. Since 2000, China has won twice as many Paralympic track medals as the United States. Brazil has invested heavily in parasports since hosting the 2016 Paralympics; last summer it nearly matched Team USA in overall track medals and won the same number of golds. Great Britain, Russia, and European countries have vastly expanded their paraathletic recruitment and training initiatives. And nearly every nation has unified their para and able-bodied track programs into a single governing body – a step the United States took belatedly this year, when US Track and Field absorbed the paratrack wing.
That organizational merger formalized a de facto fusion that's been happening for decades. US Paralympic and Olympic athletes routinely train and travel together, share coaches and sponsors, and regard each other as peers. 'I moved to the Olympic Training Center in 2005, and Al Joyner was my coach,' says April Holmes, a trailblazing Paralympic sprinter who now serves as interim CEO of SafeSport USA. 'I trained with all of his [Olympic] athletes. There was already a conversation back then – 'Why aren't our Nationals together?' The administration finally caught up to what was happening on the track.'
'The rest of the world has been doing it, and we should be doing it too,' adds shotputter Josh Cinnamo, a world record-holder and member of Team USA's Athletes Commission. 'If we're going to speak like we're one organization, then let's be one organization.'
Nobody in the US wants to see China dominate Team USA on the Paralympic track in three years. But it may take the Americans longer than that to catch up. While top-tier US paraathletes such as McFadden, Romanchuk, Ezra Frech, Hunter Woodhall, and Brittni Mason can compete with anyone in the world, America's talent pipeline is nowhere near as productive on the Paralympic side as on the Olympic side.
'We are missing a bridge between junior level competition and the international level,' says retired Paralympian Amanda McGrory, a seven-time medalist who now provides color commentary on NBC Universal's paratrack coverage. 'After you win your state or regional championship, there's nowhere to go. Where do you find a coach? How do you make that jump from high school or collegiate competition to the world-championship level? There hasn't been a lot of direction for most people. That's where we really need some support.'
Jimenez-Vergara illustrates the obstacles athletes face. After piling up national championships and international medals in his teens, he floundered for several years, training on his own with sporadic coaching. 'I was trying to get to the Tokyo Paralympics, but I didn't know how,' he says. 'It just wasn't happening. I just didn't have the speed.' He might have remained stuck if his old junior coach hadn't brokered an introduction to US Paralympic track coach Joaquim Cruz. That eventually led to a berth at the US Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, which made an immediate and dramatic impact.
'I stopped viewing myself as just a wheelchair racer,' Jimenez-Vergara explains. 'Being around all the sprinters, the throwers, the jumpers, I realized that I am a track athlete. That meant I had to act like one. I had to start doing the track things these other guys had been doing for years and years.'
He took advantage of the personal trainer, gym, nutritionist, sports psychologist, and other forms of support he'd always lacked access to. The effects became clear in 2023, when Jimenez-Vergara won a gold and two silvers at the Parapan American Games, a standard proving ground for emerging US Paralympians. This season he's staged a running back-and-forth duel with his one-time idol, Romanchuk, typified by the tight finish in last weekend's 5000m. By 2028, he may be ready to challenge for a Paralympic podium.
There are plenty of prospects like Jimenez-Vergara who are still out there floundering, and the USATF hasn't yet built a system for finding and developing them. It will take an aggressive recruiting blitz for the US to have any chance of running down the Chinese.
'USA Track and Field has an established model of how to identify talent and get them to the next level,' McGrory says. 'And I think that's replicable on the Paralympic side. China has done a really good job at discovering and developing young talent. It makes them hard to catch. But that's where USA Track and Field can help.'
'USATF just needs to do what they do well,' adds Wallace. 'They just need to lean in to who they are.'
Bringing the Para Track Nationals to Hayward Field was a necessary first step, but not a sufficient one. Team USA still has a lot of race left to run.
Larry Borowsky is the editor of Amplitude, a national lifestyle magazine for amputees.