Meet the Paralympics' First Transgender Athlete

More than 4,000 athletes from around the world will compete in 22 sports during the Aug. 28-Sept. 8 Paralympics in Paris. Read on for some of the highlighted athletes, per the AP.

• Valentina Petrillo: The Italian Paralympian will become the first transgender athlete to compete in the Games. In Paris, the 50-year-old runner will compete in the 200 meters and 400 meters in the women's T12 classification for athletes with visual impairments. At 14, Petrillo was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition. Between 2015 and 2018, Petrillo won 11 national titles in the men's category before transitioning in 2019. Last year, Petrillo won two bronze medals at the World Para Athletics Championships. She sees competing at the Paralympics as a symbol of inclusion in world sport.
• Two mainstays: Tatyana McFadden and Jessica Long are legends on the Paralympic stage. McFadden, a wheelchair racer, and Long, a swimmer, will each make their sixth summer Games appearance in France. In 2014, McFadden even made a Winter Paralympics appearance in Sochi, and she dominated the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro with six medals, including four gold. She also was featured in Rising Phoenix, a Netflix film about the Paralympic movement. Long, meanwhile, has earned a staggering 29 medals, including eight gold, in swimming events since she was 12 and the youngest American on the 2004 US team in Athens.

• Nick Mayhugh: Soccer is his love, but sprinting made him a Paralympic gold medalist. At 14 years old, America's Nick Mayhugh was diagnosed with cerebral palsy —a "dead spot" on the right side of his brain affects the mobility of the left side of his body. Mayhugh played Division I soccer at Radford University before representing the US on the seven-a-side National Soccer Team in 2017. However, since soccer is played between blind athletes at the Paralympics, Mayhugh started to train as a sprinter. He left Tokyo with three gold medals, one silver, and the world records for his classification in the 100 meters and 200 meters. Now he'll be back sprinting in the 100-meter and 400-meter races, and he'll also try medaling in a new event for the first time—the long jump.
• Oksana Masters: The American athletehas 17 medals across three Paralympic sports: Nordic skiing, rowing, and cycling. Adopted from an orphanage in Ukraine when she was 7, Masters was born with congenital disabilities because of radiation poisoning from the Chernobyl nuclear accident. When she was 14, her legs were amputated above her knees. Sports became a way to showcase her power and strength. The 2012 London Paralympics was Masters' first time representing the United States; Paris will mark her seventh Paralympics. She's also competed in every winter Games since 2014 as a Nordic skier.
• Ali Truwit: She's swimming in the Games a year after a shark took her leg. Read a profile here.

(Read about other Paralympians here.)