Paris, France — Wheelchair Rugby made its Paralympic debut as a demonstration event in Atlanta in 1996. Four years later in Sydney, it was officially a mixed Paralympic sport. Team USA took home gold. 24 years after that triumph, the American team had another milestone moment in Thursday’s 51-48 Group Stage victory over Canada.

For the first time in United States Paralympic history, the mixed Wheelchair Rugby team has a female competing. And she’s not just on the team. She’s contributing in a big way.

Sarah Adam made her Paralympic debut with six tries over 16:09 of playing time. A professor of occupational therapy at St. Louis University in Missouri, Adam first qualified for the national team in 2022, winning gold at the Parapan American Games in Santiago in November 2023. Now, she’s on the biggest stage for wheelchair rugby in the world.

“It’s just a really exciting time right now for women in sports,” said Adam. “For other females to see that, if this is where you want to play, go do it. Step outside that comfort zone and do it anyway.”

“It opens doors for women in sports,” remarked Eric Newby, Team USA Captain and father of a four-year-old daughter. “I think it’s a very powerful thing to get behind and I support anybody that gets behind the women power movement.”

It was a back-and-forth affair early. The two sides swapped scores for the first seven scores of the game en route to a 4-3 Canada lead. But successful tries from the likes of Adam, now-four-time Paralympian Chuck Aoki, and now-three-time Paralympian Josh Wheeler propelled the Americans to a two-point advantage. Fast forward five minutes of game time and the margin was the same; Team USA led Canada 14-12 through eight minutes.

Team USA kept its solid play going for the first half of the second quarter, building its lead to 22-18 before Canada caught fire. A 5-1 run spurred by four-time Paralympian Zachary Madell, who finished with a game-high 31 tries, knotted the score at 23. The two sides traded points to end the period with the USA ahead 25-24.

The third quarter was another story of punches and counter-punches. Canada scored first, and then the US responded. That repeated seven times until back-to-back tries from Wheeler and Aoki gave the Americans their multi-point lead back. A buzzer beater from Jeff Butler at the end of the period pushed the lead to 37-34.

“We got a little frantic there midway through, probably second quarter, third quarter,” said Aoki. “It got away from us a little bit, but we settled down, trusted our process and ended up with a healthy enough margin.”

That end-of-quarter margin of three tries proved the difference. Canada never got back within two as the two sides alternated scores for the entire eight-minute frame. The Americans jump out to 1-0 in the group stage following their 51-48 victory.

“Canada’s a really strong side, and we knew they were gonna bring everything today,” said Aoki, who finished with 21 tries. “So I feel great about it. Feel really good about how the team played.

“We had a little bit of a hiccup there in the second quarter,” recalled Adam. “For us to clean that up and trust the plan and trust each other, I’m really proud of that.”

“A lot of us have a bunch of silver medals at home,” remarked Newby. “We’re all searching for gold. This game was great, but we definitely had a couple of mishaps, and we’re going to go in the locker room, we’re going to talk about it, we’re going to clean it up, we’re going to have each others backs, and we’re going to come out on fire for the next game.”

Team USA is back in action at 1:30 PM Paris time on Friday when it takes on Japan.