Paris 2024: Chuck Aoki is aiming for wheelchair rugby gold
After two silvers and a bronze, wheelchair rugby star Chuck Aoki is aiming for gold – and memories more valuable than any medal 14 Aug 2024
It is fair to say that anybody hoping to win wheelchair rugby gold at the Paris 2024 Paralympics is going to have to get past Chuck Aoki.
The USA’s veteran co-captain will compete at his fourth Games, claiming bronze on his debut at London 2012 before coming up agonisingly short in Rio in 2016, when they lost 59-58 to Australia in the final, and again five years later at Tokyo 2020, where they went down 54-49 to Great Britain.
“The preparations for Paris are going well,” he said. “When the last Games end, you take a bit of time to recover, then you go again. We’ve got a younger team this time around, but we feel very excited.
“We know where we’re going with it, we like our team and we feel very confident. I think our expectations are to perform at our absolute best, which for us would result in a gold medal. We don’t like to attach too much to one outcome or another, but we aim to be on top."
Chuck Aoki's Path to Paralympic Greatness
Wheelchair rugby at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will take place from 29 August-2 September. Eight teams -France, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and the USA - will compete for the podium at the Champ-de-Mars Arena.
“To win a Paralympic medal takes and incredible amount of focus and dedication – it takes making that your goal in life. That doesn’t mean other things aren’t important but everything else follows on from that. At its core it takes passion – and I love playing wheelchair rugby.”
Yet it wasn’t his first sporting love…
Falling in love with ‘Murderball’
Born in Minneapolis in March 1991, Aoki was diagnosed with a “very rare” condition called hereditary sensory autonomic neuropathy type II soon afterwards. “Essentially, I have no sensation in most of my arms and most of my legs, which led to me injuring myself when I was young and causing permanent impairment,” he explained. “It meant I couldn’t play the sports I initially wanted to.
“I started playing Para sports when I was really young, around seven years old. I began with wheelchair basketball.”
But like many of his contemporaries, things really changed when Aoki saw Murderball, an acclaimed 2005 documentary about wheelchair rugby that centres on the rivalry between the USA and Canada in the run-up to the Athens 2004 Paralympics Games.
“I was like ‘I wanna try that!’” he said. “So I started playing it and fell in love instantly. At my first practice I got beat up, knocked around, sent flying – and I’ve been a rugby player ever since.
“What I most love about the sport is the physicality of it. There’s no other Para sport that you can just smash into each other then come together as a family afterwards. We’re all so close, we’ve all been through so many challenges in our lives. It’s really cool.”
2012. 2016. 2020. 2024.
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) May 20, 2024
Chuck Aoki will make history at the #ParisParalympics. 🏉 pic.twitter.com/lvRtGsSNyd
‘I still get chills thinking about London 2012’
Aoki made his international debut as a teenager in 2009 and a year later was part of the USA team that won gold at the World Championships in Vancouver, Canada.
But it wasn’t until he competed in his first Paralympics that really knew he had arrived.
“It’s an indescribable feeling, I still get chills thinking about it,” he said. “London 2012 was my first, a great Games to start with because it was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Paralympics. Such energy, such passion, to be treated like a real professional athlete was unbelievable. I still think about it to this day… such a special time.”
It's been an incredible journey I've been on-and it isn't over yet! https://t.co/hzR452WYfJ
— Chuck Aoki (@Aoki5Chuck) May 23, 2024
Bronze in London was followed by silvers in Rio and Tokyo. Losing to Australia in double overtime in 2016 was “a remarkably sobering experience” according to Aoki while Tokyo “was a tricky Games for sure” because of Covid restrictions, including near-empty venues.
“As an athlete you want to perform at your best whether you have no people there or 100,000 there,” he said. “But at the same time what makes sport and the Paralympics so special is the community it fosters; it brings people together from all over the world so to have the fans back [in Paris] will be incredible.
“It will be so awesome to share our sport, share the Paralympic Games with everyone, it just gives us so much more energy, so much more passion – it helps to know you’re playing for something important. I can’t wait to see the fans in the stands; packed houses, deafening crowds – it’s going to be incredible.
“I’m incredibly excited, I can’t wait to get on the ground there.”
The life-changing power of Para sport
Whatever the colour of the medal in the French capital – and the USA will again be among the favourites – Aoki will have it all in perspective.
“Growing up with a disability can be a very isolating experience,” he explained. “I was the only kid in a wheelchair in my high school, which was tough, to not feel like I belonged.
“Para sport changed my life in more ways than I can count. Before, I was shy, nervous, wasn’t confident in who I was. Para sport has transformed my personality, made me feel I can contribute something to the world and make it a better place.
“I met some of my best friends through Para sport, I met my wife through Para sport. I’ve seen the world, I’ve met the President of the United States, I’ve made memories that you can’t buy – entering a crowd that’s so loud you can’t hear yourself think. I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.”
Discover more about the 22 sports in the Paris 2024 Paralympic sports programme
