History was made on the first day of the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris!
Team USA wheelchair rugby athlete Sarah Adam became the first American woman to score a goal in the sport at the Paralympics on Thursday, Aug. 29. She is also the first woman to play on the U.S. wheelchair rugby team.
Adam, 32, scored the goal during the U.S.’s opening matchup of the Games against Canada at the Champ de Mars Arena in Paris. The United States beat Canada 51-48 on Thursday.
As the first woman to play for the team, Adam said she is thrilled to be leading the way for women in wheelchair rugby. “It is a really exciting time for women in sports,” Adam said in a statement via USA Wheelchair Rugby.
She continued, “It is great to see us getting the recognition we’ve always deserved. I am so glad that fans will have the opportunity to fall in love with our stories and our sports and to get to do all this alongside this amazing team is truly an honor. I have worked hard to become an elite athlete and am proud to be part of this team.”
Speaking to USA Today, Adam remarked, “We know people are going to fall in love with our stories and our sports and to be able to do that alongside these amazing teammates, this is truly a special team and I’m honored to be a part of it.”
Sarah Adam of Team USA in action during the Wheelchair Rugby Group A game United States of America vs Canada on day one of the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games.
Marco Mantovani/Getty
The outlet also spoke to Team USA’s wheelchair rugby co-captain Chuck Aoki, who shared high praise for the history-making female athlete. “She has fit in perfectly,” Aoki told USA Today.
“There’s no other way to put it. She has just embraced her role as a player on the team. I have been so, so impressed with what Sarah’s been able to do,” the co-captain — who met his wife at a wheelchair rugby tournament — added.
According to Adam’s Team USA bio, the Naperville, Illinois native earned a spot on the national team in 2022 and earned a silver medal with the team in the 2022 World Championships.
When she’s not making Paralympic history, Adam is a professor of occupational therapy at St. Louis University in Missouri.
After the Group 1 victory over Canada on Thursday for Team USA, Aoki told USA Today that his team is, “happy with the win.”
“Certainly Canada brought it as we knew they would. But yeah, happy with the win.”
Adam said the team still has “a little bit of work to do” as they continue the Games, but she’s “proud of” her squad for “pulling it back together” and “sticking to the game plan” in their first win.
