Para Coach Ellen Minzner Named 2023 Coach of the Year

The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee honored Ellen Minzner in May as the 2023 Paralympic Coach of the Year.

“It is an honor to be selected from among the many successful Paralympic coaches in the U.S.,” said Minzner, who coached the silver medal-winning PR3 mixed four with coxswain crews at the 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games.

“It speaks volumes about our program overall and the countless hours and energy that all the Para coaches on our high-performance team give to create successful crews and to advance the sport as a whole.”

Minzner is the first high-performance USRowing coach to be honored with a USOPC coaching award. For 10 years, she worked at Boston’s Community Rowing, Inc., where she spearheaded initiatives for inclusion and advocacy for people with disabilities, military veterans, and underserved youths.

As USRowing’s director of Para high performance since 2019, and the Para National Team coach for five years before that, Minzner has overhauled Para talent identification and athlete development, with an emphasis on working with collegiate athletes. At the 2023 World Rowing Championships, her Para crews won silver medals and qualified for Paris in the PR3 mixed coxed four and the PR3 mixed double.

The 2024 Paralympic rowing events run from August 30 through September 1.

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