Following last weekend’s Para Swimming World Series stop in Minneapolis, U.S. Paralympics Swimming selected 22 athletes to its roster for the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships in August.
This year’s squad features 16 women and just six men, down from its total of 25 last year.
Leanne Smith, 34, returns as a headliner after leading Team USA at last year’s World Championships in Madeira with gold medals in all seven of her events. It was the most decorated performance by an American since Jessica Long also won seven gold medals in 2010. Speaking of Long, the 31-year-old is back for her eighth World Championships as she seeks to grow her massive 52-medal collection at Worlds in Manchester, England.
Among the other standouts on the women’s side are Paralympic champions McKenzie Coan, Hannah Aspden, Mikaela Jenkins, Elizabeth Marks, and Morgan Stickney. The roster also includes Paralympic medalists Lizzi Smith, Colleen Young, Julia Gaffney, and Ahalya Lettenberger.
The youngest member of this year’s group is high school junior Audrey Kim, a Salt Lake City teen set to make her second Worlds appearance this summer and earning a silver medal on the mixed 400 free relay in Madeira.
Three women — Olivia Chambers, Christie Raleigh Crossley, and Hannah Nelson — will be making their Worlds debuts for Team USA. Raleigh Crossley is coming off an impressive world record in the women’s 50 back S9 at the world series meet in Italy while Nelson will be making her first international appearance for Team USA.
One-third of America’s six-man roster has never been to Worlds before. Lawrence Sapp, reigning world champion in the 100 fly, returns along with Jamal Hill and Matthew Torres, who each collected a pair of silvers in Madeira. 2022 Worlds silver medalist Morgan Ray brings experience as well as a hot streak after breaking the American record in the 100 breast in Minneapolis last weekend.
The new members of the men’s group are Paralympic silver medalist David Abrahams, who will be making his first major international appearance since Tokyo due to injury, and Noah Jaffe, who was one of four Americans to compete in last summer’s Duel in the Pool as part of America’s inaugural para team along with Coan, Hill, and Smith.
2023 U.S. Paralympics Swimming World Championships Team
Women
Men
