LIMA, Peru — The build up for the Olympics is always huge and exciting; but there’s another group of incredible Team USA athletes who don’t get a fraction of the coverage – they should.
This week Paralympians, elite athletes competing with disabilities, are at the Parapan Games. That includes nine athletes from Georgia.
They are in Lima, Peru with teams from 29 other countries.
Like the Olympics, there is an opening ceremony. Nearly 30,000 people were there cheering on 1,800 athletes – every one of them have overcome a challenge that could have kept them out of sport, or for some, ended their lives.
Nine days of competition that most people will never hear about. That’s a shame. They master events that, to an outsider, may seem impossible. They do it with strength, talent and courage.
We are cheering on Georgia’s own, like Eric Duda, David Prince, Jarryd Wallace and McClain Hermes, from Dacula, who just won her second medal of the meet – a silver in 400-freestyle.
Hermes is swimming in honor of her best friend, Grace Bunke, "Amazing Grace," named to Team USA just a few months before she passed away from cancer.
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