Already missing the action of the Paris Olympics? Never fear! The Paris Paralympic Games are now underway, featuring 4,400 athletes from 184 delegations who will compete across 22 different sports. Jewish athletes won at least 18 medals at the Olympics Games this summer, and Jewish Paralympians are poised to go for the gold with equal fervor. U.S. track star and current high jump T6 world record holder Ezra Frech has his sights set on becoming “the greatest Paralympian of all time.” Israeli rower Moran Samuel is back for her fourth Paralympics, having already won bronze and silver in Rio and Tokyo, respectively.
And American table tennis legacy Ian Seidenfeld is back in action in Paris, hoping to defend his gold medal from Tokyo. Here are 18 things to know about him.
1. Ian was born on July 17, 2001 in Lakeville, Minnesota.
2. He’s a Cancer.
3. Ian was born with pseudoachondroplasia dwarfism, an inherited bone growth disorder.
4. Please enjoy this beautiful photo of the entire Seidenfeld family: parents Mitch and Tina, children Ian and Emma.
5. Ian’s dad Mitch is a former ParaTable Tennis champion! He won gold at the 1992 Barcelona Paralympics in the singles C8 competition and silver at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics in the same event. Mitch was taught to play table tennis by his father.
6. Ian started playing table tennis when he was around 4 or 5 years old and is coached by his dad.
“We’ve had a lot of fights. But I think all of that brings you closer in the end,” Ian said candidly of their coach-athlete relationship. “In Tokyo we had a great understanding of I wouldn’t want anyone else to be in my corner to support me to advocate for me. He knows me as well as I can and cares for me more than anyone else so I appreciate everything he’s done for me even though I probably don’t always show it.”
7. His favorite athlete is basketball player Tim Duncan.
8. In addition to table tennis, Ian also plays baseball.
9. Ian was a Parapan American Games table tennis champion in 2019 as well as 2023.
10. Watch him win ParaTable Tennis gold in the final moments of the Tokyo gold medal match!
11. “I can’t express how much this experience in Tokyo has meant to me,” Ian wrote after winning gold. “Each match has forced me to become a better player than I was before. Even with my opponents trying their hardest to not let me compete, my father and I battled everything and persevered in the end. I’m forever grateful to my father for supporting me through everything and never giving up on me.”
He concluded, “Thank you to my mom, my sister, and everyone who has supported me on this Journey!!”
12. When Ian won gold in Tokyo, he was the first American to win ParaTable Tennis gold since his (Jewish) teammate Tahl Leibovitz in 1996.
13. His mom is incredibly of him!
“There are no words to describe the feeling of how proud and excited I am for Ian and what he has done at the age of 20,” Tina Seidenfeld after Ian won the gold medal in 2020. ““He showed so much focus and determination in his last match to defeat his opponent (who won the gold in the 2016 Rio Paralympics).”
14. Ian graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2022 with a degree in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management.
15. When an interviewer asked how he’s mentally preparing for the Paris Paralympics, this was Ian’s response:
“I work with someone on being able to channel my energy in a more positive way. We’ve worked in the last two months leading up to the Paralympics on being able to find joy and being able to focus on what my actual goal is in a positive light. It’s helped a lot, because when you’re training, you tend to focus only on the Games and competing and winning. So, being able to talk with somebody outside of my coach or my family is very helpful in order to take a step back and realize why I’m playing, and why I’ve played for the last 15 years, and why I want to keep going. It’s not all because of winning or wanting to compete. It’s about the joy that I have while I’m playing.”
16. Ian has a few essentials for playing well. We’ll let him talk about them himself:
17. For the Paris Paralympics, Mitch invented a paddle extender that Ian has been approved to use. This is so his opponents don’t just serve him short to try to get an advantage over Ian’s shorter limbs.
18. Outside of sports, Ian is an ETF specialist with Allianz, a financial services company.
