Five U.S. Virgin Islands athletes will take their place among competitors from around the globe on Friday at the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics, which, in a break from tradition, will be held on the Seine River in the heart of the city, with boats for each delegation.
Competing for the USVI are Nicholas D’Amour in archery; Eduardo Garcia in the marathon; Kruz Schembri in fencing; and Natalia Kuipers and Maximillian “Max” Wilson in swimming, the V.I. Olympic Committee announced on Tuesday.
Kuipers and Schembri will be the flag-bearers for opening ceremony, the committee said Wednesday.
Viewers here at home can follow the athletes on the committee website, on NBC, and at the official site of the Paris Games.
D’Amour, 22, of St. Thomas, who is currently ranked 11th in the world, according to the V.I. Olympic Committee, has his first event on Thursday, when the men’s individual ranking round will be held starting at 8:15 a.m. at the storied Esplanade des Invalides. He qualified for his second Olympic berth at the Americas Continental Qualifiers in Medellin, Colombia, in April.
In Tokyo in 2020, D’Amour became the first archer representing the U.S. Virgin Islands to compete at an Olympic Games. He was eliminated by Ryan Tyack of Australia in a shoot-off in the first round.
According to his profile on the Olympics website, D’Amour took up archery at the age of six and started competing when he was a teenager. He was inspired to start shooting with a compound bow after hunting trips with his father, St. Thomas attorney Kevin D’Amour and watching him shoot in competitions. D’Amour switched to recurve in 2017 so that he would have a chance to go to an Olympic Games. “I didn’t see much future in shooting the compound. I realized that the Olympics is a big thing I could do, and I wanted to be there,” he said.
Kuipers, 22, of St. Croix, will compete in the women’s 400-meter freestyle on Saturday, with the schedule and start list still to be announced. She swam the same event at the 2020 Summer Olympics (held in 2021 due to COVID), with a time of 4:39.42. She also competed at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics in the girls’ 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle events.
At just 17 years old, fencer Schembri of St. Croix will compete in the men’s foil on Monday after qualifying for the Games in Costa Rica earlier this year. The action begins at 3:25 a.m., with the semifinals at 1:50 p.m., the bronze medal bout at 3:15 p.m., and the gold medal bout at 4:10 p.m. He earned his berth at the Games after winning gold at the PanAm Olympic Qualifying Tournament in April in Costa Rica.
Schembri has the distinction of being the first fencer from the territory to compete in the Games in 40 years, with the support of the Virgin Islands Fencing Federation, his website notes.
Next up, Wilson, 20, of St. Thomas, a rising junior at Florida State University, is set to swim in the men’s 100-meter backstroke on Tuesday, with the schedule and start list still to be announced, according to the Olympics website. It is his first time competing at the Games, having secured one of the territory’s two “universality places” in swimming — Kuipers got the other — based on points earned at events sanctioned by World Aquatics.
“It was kind of like a dream come true,” he told the Source in a recent interview. “It’s a really big deal, and I feel privileged to be going.” Despite the initial excitement, Wilson remains grounded. “With a lot of dreams, it seems like such a hard thing to achieve. Now that it has been achieved, it’s kind of toned down the severity, but it’s still a really big deal for me.”
Garcia, 31, whose father hails from St. Croix, will be the last Virgin Islands athlete to compete when he laces up for the men’s marathon on Aug. 10, which will start at 2 a.m. The runner qualified for the Games at the half marathon in Istanbul, Turkey, in April, with a time of 1:03.53 — a Virgin Islands record — that earned him a “universality place.”
The 26.2-mile course promises to showcase the heritage and history of Paris. After setting out from the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville (Paris’ city hall), the runners will cross the capital for a race against a backdrop of the region’s most beautiful monuments before reaching Versailles and then returning to the finishing line on the Esplanade des Invalides.
The closing ceremony will take place starting at 3 p.m. on Aug. 11, when the torch will be passed to Los Angeles, host of the 2028 Olympics.
The Virgin Islands Olympic Committee heads of delegation are Angel Morales, president; John Abramson Jr., secretary general; Desiree Miranda, chef de mission; and Ansen Sligar, assistant chef de mission. Visit the website to learn more.
All event times are Atlantic Standard Time.
