Colorado Springs, CO -(AmmoLand.com)- Showcasing the depth and growth of USA Shooting’s Paralympic program, five athletes have been named to the 2016 U.S. Paralympic Team.
The 2016 Paralympic Games take place September 7-16 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Mike Tagliapietra (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin),McKenna Dahl (Arlington, Washington), John Joss (U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit/Corsicana, Texas),Jazmin Almlie-Ryan (Houston, Texas) and Tammy Delano (Rome, New York) will all represent Team USA later this summer as first-time Paralympic selections.
All five athletes helped earn the five Paralympic quotas the U.S. obtained during competition in 2014 and 2015.
All Paralympic nominations are subject to the approval of the U.S. Olympic Committee and U.S. Paralympics.
“Our program has come a very long way since London with greater depth, better results and more visibility. The strides we’ve taken are nearly miraculous given the short timeframe and limited resources to work with. These five athletes have all invested so much in this process and it is amazing to be part of this team. I’m tremendously excited about the possibilities going into Rio.”
“None if these five athletes were really in contention four years ago and now all have earned Direct Allocation (Quota) places for Team USA. Additionally, all five have done the hard work to earn the right to use those slots themselves and are competitive at the highest levels of the sport. All have made finals and won medals and bring a wide variety of strengths and abilities into their events. The challenges all have overcome in order to be here have given them remarkable resilience and broad perspectives on the sport and life. I couldn’t be more proud of the accomplishments that have led them to this moment and can’t wait to see how they’ll perform in Rio.”
“The thing I am looking forward to the most is representing my country at the Paralympics,” the 44-year-old Delano said. “Very few people get the chance to experience all that I have in my shooting career, and even less get to represent their country at this level. It’s still hard to believe that this is happening to me. I am truly honored to represent the United States of America. The only thing that can make this experience better is bringing home a medal.”
“Words cannot express the tremendous amount of excitement I have as this is something I’ve been working towards,” said the 34-year-old Almlie-Ryan. “Sure, five years ago when I began this journey, I told myself that I’d one day make it to being one of the top shooters in the United States and eventually represent this country at the Paralympic Games. But now that we are here, now in the present, and that dream is becoming reality, I can’t express the amount of pride that I have. The journey thus far has been an amazing one, and I look forward to continuing on this path and representing this awesome country at the 2016 Paralympic Games!”
Tagliapietra is the only pistol shooter with the rest competing in rifle. All athletes other than Joss, who is a Sergeant in the U.S. Army, are resident athletes at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
More than 4,350 athletes from 160 nations are expected to compete in 22 sports during the 2016 Paralympic Games. U.S. media rights holders NBCUniversal and the USOC will build on its unprecedented coverage of the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games, with more coverage of the Games than ever before in 2016. The networks will air 66 hours of coverage of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, an increase of 60.5 hours from the coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, while TeamUSA.org and USParaly
More Paralympic information and biographical detail on all five Paralympic athletes.
About USA Shooting:
USA Shooting, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, was chartered by the United States Olympic Committee as the National Governing Body for the sport of shooting in April 1995. USA Shooting’s mission is to prepare American athletes to win Olympic medals, promote the shooting sports throughout the U.S. and govern the conduct of international shooting in the country.
Check us out on the web at usashooting.org and on Twitter at twitter.com/USAShooting.