While we saw a number of beauty wins from Team U.S.A. this season––Coco Gauff’s white bow, Jordan Chiles’s stylistic eyeliner, and star-spangled nails on Noah Lyles––the 2024 Olympic season didn’t end with track star Sha’Carri Richardson’s gold-winning manicures.
Yesterday, Paris’s Paralympic Games kicked off their opening ceremony, marking the start of a week full of more athlete-beauty moments.
From track and field athlete Brittni Mason’s lash extensions to volleyball flag bearer Nicky Nieves’s goddess braids, take a look at 5 paralympic athletes you should watch at the Games.
Brittni Mason
At the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Team U.S.A. sprinter Brittni Mason won gold in the mixed 4×100 meter relay and silver in the 100 and 200-meter wearing red, white and blue swirled French tips.
This year, she’s returned to the Games with a new manicure––she wore a non-icure accented with white and gold––which may be an explicit reference to the medal she’s been training hard to win.
Nicky Nieves
Team U.S.A.’s volleyball middle blocker Nicky Nieves withdrew from the 2020 Tokyo Games due to illness after winning gold at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Now, she’s back to claim another gold—and show off knockout beauty moments at the same time.
Seen in blown out pigtail buns at the team’s media summit, Nieves switched up her look for the actual Games, pulling off the trending blonde goddess braids.
Femita Ayanbeku
World bronze medalist Femita Ayanbeku is a Haitian and Nigerian-American sprinter for Team U.S.A. track and field. The Paralympic veteran––who’s worn a prosthetic leg since losing the bottom half at age 11––has competed in 2016, 2020 and now, the 2024 Games in Paris. A talented competitor, Ayanbeku is hard to miss with her long, brown locs going airborne as she runs.
Arelle Middleton
One of the youngest competitors at the 2024 Paralympics, 16-year-old Arelle Middleton competes in both track and field (as a shot putter) and wheelchair basketball.
At her first Games, Middleton wears her hair in a half-braided updo with gold clasps, to honor the medal she plans on winning, while competing in the F64 classification of her events.
Whitney Dosty
Team U.S.A.’s Whitney Dosty is a ballerina-turned-volleyball player who won gold at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo. Like Nieves and Middleton, braids are in season for Dosty as well. She’s opting for a set of French curl braids in honor of the Paris Games. Meanwhile, her opalescent nails put the white in red, white and blue.