The 2024 Olympic Games may be over, but the streets of Paris are still buzzing as fans from around the world gear up for the 2024 Paralympic Games. August 28 marks the beginning of this year’s competition for athletes with disabilities.
To kick off the international sporting event, Team USA selected sitting volleyball player Nicky Nieves and wheelchair basketball player Steve Serio to wave the nation’s flag during the opening ceremony.
“Being the flagbearer for Team USA means that all of my hard work was not in vain,” Nieves said in a statement. “I get to represent the country that made me who I am, with the best-of-the-best U.S. athletes by my side.”
Following the official announcement, Team USA shared a heartwarming video on Instagram of Nieves receiving the news about her flagbearer nomination. Surrounded by her teammates, the Paralympian was in “pure shock” learning about her new role.
“I want to say thank you guys because it’s been a hard, long journey, literally coming from Tokyo until now. When I rep this flag, it’s, you know, for our country stuff, but mostly for you guys because you’ve held my hand and you’ve kept me,” she told her team in the video. “I’m ready to rock and roll and bring home another gold.”
“We nominated Nicky because she’s spent countless hours on boards, in training, and working to improve Paralympic sport for the next generation of athletes,” her nominating teammate Katie Holloway-Bridge explained. “Nicky’s energy is electric on the court, but her impact reaches so far beyond that. Her work as an advocate has advanced not only the sport of sitting volleyball, but the entire Paralympic movement.”
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During the 2016 Paralympic games in Rio, Nieves was a key player in helping Team USA secure its first gold medal in sitting volleyball. After not being able to play in the 2020 Tokyo Games because of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2024 flag bearer says “Paris 2024 is her redemption year.” Aligning with Nieves’ hopes to make history for Team USA with a third consecutive gold medal, the Paris Paralympics ceremony is making history as it will take place outside the confines of a traditional stadium.
“To ensure that the spotlight is firmly on the achievements of the Paralympic athletes, the values that they embody and the emotions that they inspire in us, Paris 2024 wanted to offer them a groundbreaking showcase by organizing the first Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony outside the confines of a stadium,” Tony Estanguet, President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, explained about the ceremony venues, Paris’ Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées.
“ Looking beyond this exceptional setting offered for the leading athletes and spectators from around the world, this ceremony at the heart of the city is a strong symbol illustrating our ambition to capitalize on our country hosting its first-ever Paralympic Games to position the issue of inclusion for people with disabilities at the heart of our society,” he added.
Beyond her life as an athlete, Nieves describes herself as “a Black Puerto Rican Jesus-lovin’ girly from New York, and seasoned in Florida.” According to her Team USA biography, she was born without a left hand. Though doctors could not confirm the reason for her disability, Nieves did not let that stop her from learning to play the piano and playing sports like volleyball, track and field, and cheerleading as a child.
In an Instagram caption reintroducing herself to new followers, the gold medalist reveals that she is also “a baby therapist completing my masters in Clinical Mental Health, and advocate for mental health in the sports space.” In 2018, Nieves founded Limitless People, a nonprofit organization on a mission to create inclusive spaces for people to play volleyball regardless of money, race, physical ability and gender.
“Not everyone has the opportunity or the resources to go out and learn a new sport. Not everyone has the opportunity to build friendships with like-minded, or “like-limbed” individuals as I have been. Thus, the idea of a nonprofit aimed to provide volleyball opportunities was born,” Nieves said on the nonprofit’s website. “If I can impact just one life, give at least one individual a good time, a little confidence in the sport and in self, and a memory to last a lifetime, I know I am fulfilling my purpose.”
