Texans delivered at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. From Simone Biles conquering gymnastic skills named after her, to competitors from the Lone Star State claiming more medals than many countries, sports fans from the Rio Grande Valley up to the Panhandle had plenty of cause for cheer. But Texan athletes aren’t done with Paris just yet. As the 2024 Paralympic Games begin in the French capital, here are eight athletes hoping to bring more glory back to the state. With stars ranging from discus champion Jeremy Campbell to Jordan White, the youngest American archer to qualify for the Games, these athletes are sure to add some hardware to Texas’s already packed trophy case.
Jeremy Campbell
Campbell is one of the best discus throwers in the world. The 37-year-old from the Panhandle town of Perryton is making his fifth Paralympic appearance and looking to win his fifth gold medal in the event. Campbell was born with fibular hemimelia and was missing the outer shin bone in his right leg. When Campbell was eleven months old, doctors amputated his leg below the knee, but that did not stop him from growing up surrounded by sports. His brother Caleb, older by three years, went on to play linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, while Jeremy played football and basketball and ran track at Perryton High School. During a track competition in Oklahoma City during his sophomore year, Campbell first learned about the Paralympics. That day changed the course of his athletic career. Now he is credited as the first Paralympian to throw a discus farther than sixty meters. Campbell took silver in the event at last year’s world championships, but this summer he’ll be looking to reclaim gold.
Jazmin Almlie-Ryan
Almlie-Ryan, a 42-year-old mother and third-time Paralympian air rifle shooter from the Houston area, discovered her gift for marksmanship fourteen years ago at a wheelchair-basketball tournament. After her final game of the event was canceled, Almlie-Ryan had some free time and wound up meeting an instructor from the National Rifle Association who suggested she enter an air rifle contest. Although she had no competitive shooting background, she surprised everyone—including herself—when she outperformed the field. That led to her receiving an invite to a USA Shooting training camp at the Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. In her free time, Almlie-Ryan still enjoys team sports and plays wheelchair rugby for the TIRR Texans, where she’s the only woman on a squad with twelve men.
Korban Best
A 21-year-old sprinter from the Dallas–Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, Best placed third in the men’s 100 meters T47 at the U.S. Paralympics Track & Field National Championships earlier this year. Born with ulnar dysplasia in his right arm, Best played defensive back on the junior varsity team at perennial high school powerhouse Southlake Carroll (where Texas Longhorns starting quarterback Quinn Ewers spent his prep career). Best studied sports science and performance at Arizona State University before committing himself full-time to training for track and field. He will make his Paralympic debut in Paris.
Kaitlyn Eaton
Back when Eaton was choosing an elective at Jersey Village High School, in the northwest Houston suburbs, she realized the school had no sports opportunities for students with disabilities. Instead, she joined the TIRR Memorial Hermann Junior Hotwheels wheelchair-basketball team. When Eaton, who is 30, started playing, she thought moving from one side of the court to the other on a wheelchair would be easy, but she quickly found that the endurance, strength, and coordination the sport requires were more than enough to challenge her. She improved quickly, though, eventually playing wheelchair basketball at the University of Illinois and then setting her sights on Team USA. She didn’t make the team for 2016 Paralympics, in Rio de Janeiro, but she rallied to earn a spot on the roster for the Tokyo Games and contributed to the group’s bronze medal finish. In Paris, Eaton will be ready to show off her hot wheels once again and help the U.S. women return, hopefully with a higher spot on the medal podium.
John Joss
Joss, a 41-year-old rifle marksman from Corsicana, will be participating in his third Paralympic Games this summer. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2004, and while serving in Iraq in 2007, he lost a portion of his right leg when enemy forces ambushed his vehicle. After his injury, Joss took up competitive shooting and joined the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. Within a year of dedicating himself to the sport, he won a bronze medal at the International Paralympic Committee World Cup in Turkey. He is the current U.S. record holder for the R6 mixed 50-meter free rifle prone SH1 category and won a silver medal at the 2018 World Shooting Para Sport World Cup, in France. Joss’s return to Europe for the 2024 Paralympics could produce a gold medal breakthrough.
Fabian Romo
Romo, a wheelchair-basketball legend at the University of Texas at Arlington, led the Movin’ Mavs to a 2017 national championship. The 27-year-old now plays professionally for the Spanish club Iberconsa Amfiv and is looking to deliver gold for Team USA in Paris. Romo, whose left leg was not fully formed at birth, had the limb amputated slightly above the knee when he was four. He discovered wheelchair basketball at Elkins High School, just outside Houston, and he’s been dedicated to the sport ever since. Romo and the U.S. men’s wheelchair-basketball team won the 2023 world championships and will look to claim another gold in Paris.
Jason Tabansky
Tabansky, a forty-year-old archer from Brownsville, thought he hadn’t made the cut to compete at the 2024 Paralympics. He was competing at a June event in the Czech Republic to improve his world ranking when he learned an Australian archer had dropped out of the Paris Games due to injury. As the next-highest-ranking archer, Tabansky was called up to replace the Aussie on the sport’s highest stage. A retired U.S. Army Chinook helicopter mechanic, crew member, and flight crew instructor, eight years ago Tabansky suffered a spinal cord injury caused by an infection that left him without the ability to walk. Since discovering his gift for archery, Tabansky has won thirteen medals at international events, including a pair of golds at the Parapan American Games and the Para Pan American Championships. In addition to pursuing his own competitive career, Tabansky runs training programs in Texas to teach young Paralympic athletes how to aim for—and strike—the bull’s-eye in archery and in life.
Jordan White
Just fifteen years old, White has made history as the youngest American archer to qualify for the Paralympics. The teenager from Cedar Park, just outside Austin, first picked up a bow in 2020, and he quickly rose from winning YMCA tournaments to setting national records. Born with congenital femoral deficiency, which left his right leg shorter and weaker than his left leg, White has undergone more than twenty surgeries intended to gradually lengthen the leg and improve stability. He trains six to seven days a week and works with a sports psychologist. As he aims for gold in Paris, White hopes his journey will inspire other young athletes.
Image credits: Best: Andy Lyons/Getty; Campbell: Alex Pantling/Getty; Romo: Anatoliy Cherkasov/NurPhoto via Getty; Eaton: Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle via Getty; Almlie-Ryan: Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty
