Emerging Athlete Program

The U.S. Paralympics Emerging Sport Program is designed to indentify, recruit, track, support and retain Paralympic-eligible athletes with physical disabilities seeking to become internationally competitive.  A key component to the success of the emerging tier of the sport performance pipeline is collaboration between community and military programs, partner organizations, military and veteran facilities and National Governing Bodies.

Athlete recruitment and identification begins at the local level through military sport camps, site coordinators, community programs, coaches, technical officials, and current athletes.  Once a new Paralympic-eligible athlete is identified as having high performance potential, the Emerging Sports Manager will facilitate appropriate communication between athlete(s) and local program(s) as well as with the appropriate Paralympic sport coaches and high performance directors.  This will include connections to local training resources and participation in select emerging and/or national U.S. Paralympics Team camps and competitions as well as information regarding able-bodied competitions, events and other general sport program opportunities for developing and emerging athletes.

If you are interested in learning more about becoming an identified U.S. Paralympics emerging athlete please review our sport classifications, results, standards and the annual sport performance plans, then complete the form linked on the right-hand side of this page, titled "Athlete Questionnaire."