Meet the athletes of the 2024 Paralympics

The Paralympic Flag. Source: Wikimedia Commons.   

The Olympics, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. A historical sporting event where athletes from all over the world compete against each other. Olympics content has been dominating our screens for all 19 days of the event and most of us can’t get enough, watching sports we’d never show interest in otherwise and cheering on our New Zealand athletes. Although the Olympics are over, fear not, the games are not over yet. The Paralympics are just about to start on the 28th of August.  

The Paralympics are the largest international event for disabled athletes, held shortly after the Olympic games every two years, both summer and winter games. The Paralympics are hosted by the same country as the Olympics, this is due to an agreement between the Paralympic committee and the International Olympic Committee, which was done to raise the profile of the Paralympics games.  

The Paralympics feature 22 sports that have been adapted for those with disabilities and features a range of classifications for the sports. Classifications determine which athletes are eligible to compete in a sport and how athletes are grouped together for competition. These classifications were created by the paralympic movement and were made so the sports are as fair as possible. There are 10 eligible impairment types in the Paralympics – eight of these categories are physical impairments, one is a vision impairment, and the other is an intellectual impairment. 

At the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, New Zealand sent a team of 26 athletes - winning six gold, three sliver, and three bronze for a total of 12 medals won.  

In 2024, New Zealand have a strong team of around 25 athletes. Our athletes are competing in eight of the 22 para sports on offer at these games. These sports are para-athletics, para-badminton, para-canoe, para-cycling, para-equestrian, para-swimming, para-table tennis, and shooting para-sports.   

The team includes returning champaigns such as three-time Paralympian and two-time gold medal winner Anna Grimaldi. Grimaldi won gold in the women’s long jump T47 in the Tokyo games. She also set a paralympic record with her first jump of 5.74m, then on her fourth jump setting the new record of 5.76m. In 2024 she will be competing in three athletic events, the women’s long jump T47, women’s 100m T47, and women’s 200m T47.  

The team also includes Paralympian Cameron Leslie, who is a four-time Paralympian that has won three gold medals in the Men’s Individual Medley 150m SM4, in para-swimming. In Leslie’s debut games at Beijing 2008 Paralympics, he ‘shocked the world’, setting the world record time in the event – he went and repeated this in the London 2012 games and the Rio 2016 games.  

Another returning athlete is three-time Paralympian Scott Martlew, who made his debut in Rio 2016 in para-canoe. He is ranked 8th in the world for the sport and is the 2024 Harvey Norman para-sport campaign.  

And finally, there are around 11 NZ athletes who are making their paralympic debut in 2024.  

One such athlete is Neelam O’Neill who is competing in the shooting para-sport. O’Neill is the first female shooting para sport athlete to compete for New Zealand in 40 years, and is the first NZ women to compete in air pistol.  

Wojtek Czyz is the first athlete to represent New Zealand in para-badminton, making his debut. Czyz has an impressive athlete record setting five world records in free diving as an amputee. 

There is also hype around debutant Peter Cowan, who competes in an adapted version of waka ama. The sport is internationally known as Para-Va’a and is a division of para-canoe.  

These are only a handful of the 25 athletes competing, all ready to represent our country in the Paralympics.  

The PNZ Chief Executive Officer Greg Warnecke told Paralympics NZ, “[t]he New Zealand Paralympic Team are high performance athletes, who reach the very highest level of elite sport. All athletes face challenges, but they fight hard to overcome them, step onto the world stage and do incredible things.” 

“Our Paralympians also happen to have truly inspiring and sometimes heartbreaking stories of resilience. Twenty-five percent of Kiwis have a disability, some are visible, some are not. But we know disability can affect New Zealanders in some way and they will be able to relate to, and respect, our Paralympians.”