Tom Cruise may have rappelled into the packed stadium and the cauldron may have been extinguished, but you don’t have to wait four years for more international glory. Thankfully, competition between the world’s best athletes kicks off again Wednesday, August 28, with 170 different nations taking part in 22 sports in the 2024 Paralympic Games, also in Paris.

As was the case with the Summer Olympics, Colorado will be well-represented on the global stage: Nine athletes from the Centennial State have earned the opportunity to try to win a gold medal in France. Here’s a rundown.

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Read More: Meet the 26 Coloradans Competing in the Paris Olympics

Kyle Coon

Kyle Coon runs with a guide
Kyle Coon and guide compete during the Legacy Triathlon-USA Paratriathlon National Championships on July 20, 2019, in Long Beach, California. Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Kyle Coon has always been drawn to action. Despite a rare form of eye cancer robbing him of his vision when he was seven years old, he hiked the Ancascocha Trail to Machu Picchu in 2006 and summited Mt. Kilimanjaro the following year. After graduating college in 2013, he turned to endurance sports. A five-time World Triathlon Para Series medalist (including three golds), Coon finished fifth in the para triathlon in Tokyo in 2021 and, at 32, was named the USA Paratriathlon national champion in 2022. In France, he will compete in his second Games.

Hailey Danz

Hailey Danz in Tokyo
Hailey Danz crosses the finish line to win the silver medal in the women’s PTS2 Para Triathlon in the Tokyo Games. Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images

Hailey Danz, too, has significant experience in the Paralympics—the 33-year-old is competing in her third Games, having won silver in paratriathlon in 2016 and 2020. Danz was diagnosed with bone cancer in her left leg when she was 12, and, after a year of chemotherapy and several surgeries, she made the decision to have her leg amputated. Like any good Coloradan, she initially turned to skiing to channel her athletic ambitions, but later learned she had a knack for triathlon: She was named the USA Triathlon Paratriathlete of the Year in 2015 and, in 2022, she won her third World Triathlon Para Championships title.

Beatriz Hatz

Beatriz Hatz competes in the Women Long Jump Mixed Final on Day 2 of the 2024 U.S. Paralympics Team Trials. Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

While many athletes have narrowly defined specialties within their given sport, Beatriz Hatz excels in a number of different events. At the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, she finished fifth in the long jump, sixth in the 100 meters, and sixth in the 200 meters. In Paris, she’ll only be competing in the long jump, but figures to be among a handful of top contenders in the event, especially after finishing sixth in the World Para Athletics Championships in May. Hatz, 23, was born without a fibula in her right leg, which prompted her to have the limb amputated below the knee.

Elizabeth Marks
Elizabeth Marks. Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for USOPC

Elizabeth Marks

Few members of the American delegation in Paris have resumés quite as jam-packed as Elizabeth Marks’. This year’s Paralympics will be her third. She earned gold medals in the 100-meter breaststroke in 2016 and the 100-meter backstroke in 2020; she also nabbed a silver in the 50-meter free in 2020 and bronzes in the 4×100-meter medley (2016) and 50-meter butterfly (2020). For all of her accomplishments, Marks, 34, came to swimming relatively late in life. She joined the Army shortly after her 17th birthday, but while in Iraq as a combat medic, she suffered bilateral hip injuries and, as a result, had to undergo a series of surgeries. Fewer than two years later, she came to realize she was a gifted swimmer and has been racking up honors ever since.

Jack O’Neil

Jack O’Neil
Jack O’Neil shakes hands with USOPC Board Chair Gene Sykes after being named to the team during the 2024 U.S. Paralympic Swimming Team Announcement on June 30, 2024, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Jack O’Neil earned his place on the international stage before even finishing college. A rising senior at the University of Wyoming, where he competes in freestyle and backstroke, O’Neil qualified for Paris (his first Paralympics) by taking first place in the 100-meter backstroke at the trials earlier this year. In February, he posted a career-best time of 26.47 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle at the Western Athletic Conference Championships. At just nine years old, O’Neil, who was struggling with congenital deformities in his left leg, chose to have his leg amputated below his knee so he could chase his athletic goals.

Josh O’Neill

Josh O’Neill, 36, comes from a family of race car drivers and, for most of his childhood, appeared destined to follow in those tracks. On his 16th birthday, however, O’Neill broke his neck in an accident. While in rehab in 2009, he watched Murderball, the Academy Award–nominated documentary about wheelchair rugby, and a new dream took hold. O’Neill went on to play collegiately at the University of Arizona and has found success in international competition, including a silver medal at the Wheelchair Rugby World Championship in 2022.

Howie Sanborn

For 15 years, Howie Sanborn served as an airborne Ranger in the Army, when he began competing in triathlons as an able-bodied racer. While cycling with a friend in September 2012, however, Sanborn was struck by a distracted driver and broke his back, paralyzing him from the waist down. While recovering from the life-altering injury at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, he met Keri Serota, a cofounder of the Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club, a nonprofit that works to enhance the lives of disabled athletes through running, biking, and swimming. Just seven months after the accident, Sanborn took part as a wheelchair athlete in a para triathlon—the start of a path that has led him to Paris.

Melissa Stockwell
Melissa Stockwell crosses the finish line during the women’s PTS2 Para Triathlon at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images

Melissa Stockwell

Sixteen years after her Paralympics debut, 44-year-old Melissa Stockwell is back for her fourth Games. While serving in Iraq with the Army’s transportation corps, she lost her left leg after her vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, earning her a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for her bravery and sacrifice. Four years later, she became the first-ever Iraq War veteran to make the Paralympics when she qualified as a swimmer for the 2008 Beijing Games. She returned to the Paralympics in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, this time as a triathlete, and won a bronze medal. Most recently, she finished fourth in the para triathlon at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships. Stockwell is heavily involved in the world of para athletics; she’s a cofounder of the Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club and serves on the board of directors for the Wounded Warrior Project and the USA Triathlon Women’s Committee.

Jataya Taylor

Jataya Taylor joined the Marines shortly after completing school, but before she could even be deployed, she suffered an accident during training that caused permanent damage to her left leg. Twelve years later, she asked doctors to amputate it. During a visit to a Veterans Affairs hospital in February 2022, Taylor saw adaptive fencing for the first time and was immediately drawn to it. That August, she began training and now, just two years later, she’s set to compete in the Paralympics, where she’ll participate in the individual and team épée, as well as the individual and team foil.

Craig Meyer
Craig Meyer
Craig Meyer is a Denver-based freelance writer. Before moving to Colorado in June 2022, he spent the previous 10 years as a sports writer with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, primarily covering college basketball and football.