The games aren’t over yet.
On Wednesday, the Paralympics start in Paris. More than 165 countries and 4,400 athletes with impairments and disabilities will compete across 22 sports and 549 medal events.
“The world puts people with disabilities in a box. I’m here to show them that I can dress cute. I can wear makeup. I can be a pro athlete,” said Anastasia Pagonis, a Long Island native and freestyle swimmer who won gold at the Tokyo Paralympics and is looking to pick up more hardware in Paris.
Meet her and four other local competitors to watch.
Anastasia Pagonis, 20, swimming
She grew up playing soccer until, at age 11, she started losing her central vision.
It was ultimately found that she had both Stargardt disease, a genetic disorder that causes retinal degeneration, as well as autoimmune retinopathy, a rare inflammatory condition where the immune system attacks the retina.
“It’s a progressive disease,” she told The Post of the former. “My doctor recommended that I try a less contact sport.”
So, at age 12, she channeled her athletic prowess into swimming.
But, two years into her career in the pool, her vision loss quickly became worse — Stargardt disease can progress slowly, then quickly, then level off — and she lost much of her remaining vision, including the ability to see color. She was despondent.
When she finally got back in the water, it was exceedingly difficult.
“I took two strokes and smashed my nose — I left crying hysterical,” she said.
She ultimately persevered, thanks in part to her guide dog Radar, who has been a bright spot as she’s adapted to her new normal.
At age 16, in February 2020, she made more than a splash with her international debut at the 2020 World Para Swimming World Series in Melbourne, Australia, winning gold in the 400 meter freestyle, and bronze in the 200 meter.
The following year, she represented the US team in the women’s 400 meter freestyle S11 event at the Tokyo Paralympics. She broke the world record to win gold with a time of 4:54.49.
Pagonis is now a student at Adelphi University in Garden City, LI, where she’s studying sport management, and her sight loss has leveled off somewhat. She’s considered visually impaired, but can see shapes or shadows depending on the lighting. And, like any Gen Zer, she’s obsessed with social media.
She uses accessibility features, like text-to-speech, and AI to go online and even has a partnership with telecom company Xfinity, which is providing all Team USA athletes with internet, phone and cable connections credit to help them stay connected during the Paralympics.
“Learning how to use TikTok was important to me,” quipped Pagonis, who has 2.5 million followers on the platform.
Victoria Isaacson, 26, fencing
Growing up around Poughkeepsie, NY, Isaacson rode horses and competed in fencing from a young age.
“It was ponies and swords,” she told The Post. “I split my time 50/50.”
But she also suffered mysterious ailments — headaches and joint pain in her knees, hips and back.
Her gym teachers dismissed it as laziness, but at age 17, her leg was injured when a horse kicked her in the thigh.
It never fully healed after years, and doctors finally diagnosed her with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome — a genetic condition that affects the body’s ability to make collagen, weakening connective tissues and leading to fragile skin and overly flexible joints.
“Someone finally listened to me,” she told The Post. “I probably saw 10 doctors and a bunch of neurologists.”
The leg injury and EDS led her to develop a chronic secondary condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. At age 18, she had to start using a wheelchair intermittently. (She is able to do some walking with a leg brace.)
But, that didn’t mean she gave up her passions.
She learned to fence again — from a wheelchair — working with the same coach who guided her as an able-bodied athlete.
“It was not easy and very emotionally exhausting. I didn’t have a lot of people in my life who were disabled,” she said. “I had this identity crisis trying to figure out how to now do this?”
In 2019, she was selected to participate in the World Cup Championship in Cheongju, South Korea. Paris will be her first Paralympics.
Isaacson, who is pursuing a career as an occupational therapist while working as a barn manager at Lucky Orphans Horse Rescue in Dutchess County, has a lot of pride for the area she grew up in.
“Nothing really beats just how beautiful the Hudson Valley is,” she said.
Catarina Guimaraes, 20, track and field
Before she was a track star, the New Jersey native earned a black belt in Taekwondo at age 8, training at Union UTA Taekwondo Academy in Union, NJ.
“They didn’t treat me any differently because I was disabled,” said Guimaraes, who was born with Cerebral palsy, a group of neurological disorders that impacts a person’s posture and ability to move and balance.
She was diagnosed at age two, in her family’s native Portugal, after doctor’s in the US dismissed her mother’s concerns that Guimaraes was walking abnormally.
But the condition, which she manages through exercise and mobility work, has hardly slowed the gifted athlete down.
She did varsity soccer and track at Cranford High School in New Jersey.
Initially, she focused more on soccer, competing with the US Para Women’s National Team. The squad won the World Cup at the 2022 in Salou, Spain, and Guimaraes was MVP.
But her other talents couldn’t be ignored.
“Track snuck up on me,” she told The Post.
After earning a silver in the long jump event at the ParaPan American Games in Santiago in 2023, it’s now her main focus.
In Paris, she’ll be competing in the long jump as well as the 100-meter and 400-meter sprints.
“I didn’t like running — but I did like winning,” she said.
Rayven Sample, 22, track and field
As a young boy, Sample — who was born with arthrogryposis, an incurable joint condition that limits mobility in the hands — was told he’d never be able to write with a pencil, throw a baseball or do any contact sports.
But Sample couldn’t be deterred.
“It was never a hurdle that was going to stop anything,” he said. “[It was] just how are we going to do this?”
He played baseball and soccer growing up before focusing on track and field, running the 400-meter and 100-meter events.
In 2020, he was recruited to play the sport in college at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania where he double majored in psychology and education.
In Tokyo, he placed eighth in the 400-meter and 100-meter events and is thrilled to return to the games. Sample, who lives in Jamestown, NY, near Buffalo, just wishes his grandmother Kathy Sample could see him.
She helped raise him, driving him to surgeries and physical therapy appointments over the years, but passed away from lung cancer four years ago.
Her dying wish was to see him off to college, and she passed away just hours after he left for Bucknell.
“That’s all she wanted, really.” he told The Post.
Steve Serio, 36, basketball
At 11 months old, the Westbury, LI, native became paralyzed after a surgery to remove a spinal tumor that resulted in the compression of his spinal cord.
But he never let it sideline his ability to play sports, and instead found ways to adapt the sport to his ability.
“My family were determined to raise me in an able-bodied world,” Serio told Forbes.
In 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, he led the US basketball team to their first Paralympics gold medal in nearly two decades. He and the team won gold again in Tokyo and he’s going for his third gold in Paris, where he will also be a flag-bearer
“[I’m] honored,” Serio wrote on Instagram.
