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Going for gold at the Paris Olympics and Paralympics

Half of Team USA’s shotgun trap shooters are from the Kansas City area. So what is it about Missouri and Kansas that makes for such good Olympic shooters? Plus: A Missouri professor is the first woman to join the American wheelchair rugby team at the Paralympic Games.

Four trap shooters, total, will go to the Paris Summer Olympics for Team USA: two women and two men. Turns out this year, half of those athletes are from the Kansas City region. For KCUR, Greg Echlin reports on two of the world’s best competitive shotgun shooters. (And a warning: This story includes the sounds of gunshots.)

During the school year, Sarah Adam is an assistant professor of occupational therapy at St. Louis University. But this summer, she’s turning her studies toward Paris, and the 2024 Paralympics. St. Louis Public Radio’s Abby Llorico spoke with the first woman to make the wheelchair rugby team about what it means for her and her sport.

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Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Byron Love, Celia Morton and KCUR Studios, and edited by Gabe Rosenberg, Madeline Fox and Lisa Rodriguez.

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As a newscaster and a host of a daily news podcast, I want to deliver the most important and interesting news of the day in an engaging and easily understandable way. No matter where you live in the metro or what you’re interested in, I want you to learn something from each newscast or podcast – and maybe even give you something to talk about at the dinner table.
As an on-demand producer, I am focused on using my skills and experiences across multiple digital applications, platforms and media fields to create community focused audio, video and on-demand products for KCUR Studios. The media that I produce aims to inform, entertain and connect with the Kansas City metro area as we continue to learn from each other. Email me at byronlove@kcur.org.
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