Where to Watch: 2024 U.S. Paralympic Team Trials – Swimming

At the end of June, Minneapolis will have the honor of hosting not just one, but two Team USA trials for the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Alongside the best in U.S. gymnastics, the best Para swimmers across the country will be converging in Minnesota for the 2024 U.S. Paralympic Team Trials – Swimming, with the hope of punching their ticket to the Paralympic Games Paris 2024. 

Here are ten swimmers to watch going into the competition:

At just 12 years old, Jessica Long became the youngest Paralympic swimmer on Team USA at the Paralympic Games Athens 2004, and she has never looked back. The five-time Paralympian and 29-time Paralympic medalist will look to qualify for Paris and become just one of a handful of athletes that have surpassed a total of 30 Games medals. 

Already a three-time Paralympian, Coan will be looking to secure her fourth straight berth for Team USA. Born with osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease), Coan is one of U.S. Para Swimming's most decorated athletes. A six-time Paralympic medalist, she competes in the freestyle discipline in multiple lengths and 100-meter backstroke. After a health scare in 2023, Coan is committed to defending her Paralympic titles and qualifying in multiple disciplines at the Paralympic Games for Team USA.

Three months after an accidental paralysis changed her life, Mallory Weggemann was back in the pool in Minnesota. Since then she has gone on to qualify for three Paralympic Games and win a total of five Paralympic medals. Weggemann took a break during the 2022-23 season to welcome her first child, returning to competition at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile. Weggemann hopes to qualify for the Games and show her daughter that “anything is possible.”

Summer Schmit will be hoping for some hometown love as she competes during the 2024 U.S. Paralympic Team Trials – Swimming. The Stillwater, Minnesota, native is also a student-athlete at the University of Minnesota where she is a member of their women's swimming and diving team. Speaking on the impact of being a Minnesota native, at these trials, Schmit said, “My first ever long-course meet was actually at this pool, so it’s a very full-circle moment to experience this as not only a Paralympian and member of Team USA but also as a Gopher. It’s a really incredible opportunity to have my family and friends and teammates be able to come and watch. I do feel very lucky because not many people have that opportunity.”

One of the strongest men competing in the field is 20-year-old California native Noah Jaffe. At his first world championships in 2023, Jaffe won four medals, including a gold in 100m freestyle S8. Jaffe is currently taking a year off from studying biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, to train full-time for the Paralympic Games and hopes that his performance at trials will be enough to help him obtain his goal of his first Paralympic medal.

Perhaps no athlete on the U.S. Para swimming team had more of a breakout season than Olivia Chambers did in 2023. Just one year after competing at her first ever Paralympic meet, Chambers was named to the 2023 U.S. Paralympic Swimming Team at worlds where she commanded the field to win six medals in her debut. A swimmer since the age of four, Chambers broke her first state record at the age of seven, however she didn’t discover the Paralympic side of the sport until she began losing her eyesight at the age of 16. Now a sophomore and competing at the University of Northern Iowa, Chambers hopes to continue her U.S. and international success by being named to her first ever Paralympic team.

Marks refers to herself as an “accidental athlete." While deployed in Iraq in 2010, Elizabeth Marks was injured; however, her determination to remain declared fit for duty, led her to swimming. At 33 years old, Marks still sees the pool as her “happy place” and hopes to qualify for her third consecutive Paralympic team and extend her medal collection.

As a teenager, Morgan Stickney was ranked in the top 20 nationally for the mile swim with Olympic dreams. However, those dreams were shattered when a leg injury led to amputation. Not long after her amputations, Stickney got back in the pool, this time for U.S. Para Swimming where she qualified for the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 and took home two gold medals. Most recently, Stickney has broken two world records in her new classification. She will look to qualify for Paris and defend both her medals and records.

After taking a break from competition, the reigning Paralympic gold medalist is back, with only one goal in mind: qualify for the Paralympic Games Paris 2024. Pergolini was last seen in international competition at the 2022 World Para Swimming Championships, before making her return to national competition at the end of 2023. There, she left with multiple medals and two world records. Pergolini is hoping for a repeat performance at the 2024 U.S. Para Swimming Team Trials and in Paris.

The youngest athlete in the field, Cederholm calls making the Paralympic Games Paris 2024 the “craziest goal ever, but not impossible.” A seventh grader from Salt Lake City, Cederholm turned 13 the week before the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, where she took home two medals out of her three events. If she makes the 2024 U.S. Paralympic Swimming Team she will become the youngest athlete in the entire delegation and one of the youngest athletes across all sports at the Games.