Black Paralympian Nicky Nieves serves as Team USA’s flag bearer during the Paralympic Games opening ceremony

The 2024 Olympic Games could also be over, but the streets of Paris are still buzzing with activity as fans around the world prepare for the 2024 Paralympic Games. This 12 months’s competition for disabled athletes begins on August 28.

To kick off the international sporting event, Team USA has chosen volleyball player Nicky Nieves and wheelchair basketball player Steve Serio to wave the nation’s flag during the opening ceremony.

“Being the flag bearer for Team USA means that all my hard work wasn’t in vain,” Nieves said in statement“I get to represent the country that molded me while having the best of the best American athletes at my side.”

After the official announcement, Team USA shared a touching video on Instagram Nieves, who received the news of her appointment as flag bearer. Surrounded by her teammates, the Paralympian was in “sheer shock” upon learning of her recent role.

“I want to thank you guys because it’s been a tough, long journey, literally from Tokyo to now. When I represent this flag, it’s for, you know, our national causes, but mostly for you guys, because you held my hand and you kept me there,” she told her team in the video. “I’m ready to rock and roll and bring home another gold.”

“We nominated Nicky because she has put in countless hours on the court, training and working to improve the sport of Paralympics for the next generation of athletes,” explained her nominating teammate Katie Holloway-Bridge. “Nicky’s energy is electric on the court, but her influence extends far beyond. Her work as an advocate has not only helped to grow the sport of sitting volleyball, but the entire Paralympic movement.”

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Nieves played a key role in Team USA’s first-ever sitting volleyball gold medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. After missing out on the 2020 Tokyo Games as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2024 standard-bearer says, “Paris 2024 is my year of redemption.” The Paris Paralympic Games ceremony, in line with Nieves’ hopes of creating history with Team USA’s third consecutive gold medal, is making history as will happen outside the boundaries of the traditional stadium.

“To ensure the spotlight is on the achievements of Paralympic athletes, the values ​​they embody and the emotions they inspire in us, Paris 2024 wanted to offer them a groundbreaking showcase by hosting the first Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony outside the walls of a stadium,” Tony Estanguet, President of the Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024, explained where the ceremony will happen: on Paris’ Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysées.

“Looking beyond this unique setting offered to top athletes and spectators from around the world, this ceremony in the heart of the city is a powerful symbol illustrating our ambition to use our country’s hosting of the first-ever Paralympic Games to place the issue of disability inclusion at the heart of our society,” he added.

Outside of her life as an athlete, Nieves describes herself as a “black Puerto Rican Jesus-loving girl from New York City, seasoned in Florida.” According to her Team USA bio, she was born with out a left hand. Although doctors couldn’t confirm the reason behind her disability, Nieves didn’t let it stop her from learning to play the piano and participating in sports such as volleyball, track and field, and cheerleading as a toddler.

IN Description on Instagram Introducing herself to recent followers, the gold medal winner reveals that she can be a “pediatric therapist, pursuing a master’s degree in clinical mental health, and an advocate for mental health in sports.” In 2018, Nieves founded People without boundary lines, a non-profit organization whose mission is to create inclusive spaces where people can play volleyball no matter money, race, physical ability or gender.

“Not everyone has the opportunity or resources to go out and learn a new sport. Not everyone has the opportunity to build friendships with like-minded or ‘like-minded’ people like me. That’s how the idea for a nonprofit was born, to provide opportunities to play volleyball,” Nieves said on the nonprofit’s website. “If I can touch even one life, give even one person a good time, some confidence in the sport and in themselves, and a memory that will last a lifetime, then I know I’m fulfilling my destiny.”