Ali Ibanez Learned Wheelchair Basketball With the Salt Lake Wrecking Crew. The Murray Native Has Two Paralympic Medals

Ali Ibanez, a wheelchair basketball player from Murray, Utah, has won two Paralympic medals with the U.S. women: bronze at the Tokyo 2020 Games and silver at Paris 2024, the National Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA) reports.

She first made Team USA as a high school senior, the Utah Sports Commission says, after learning the game in Utah with the Salt Lake Wrecking Crew, a club later renamed the Utah Rush. As of the NWBA's January 2026 listing she plays her club basketball at home, for the Utah Wheelin' Jazz in the NWBA's Adult Division I.

"I'm a weird player because I am not really that much of a shooter," she told KPCW in 2024.

Murray and Cottonwood High

The NWBA and Team USA print her hometown as Murray, and Team USA's archive profile lists her birthplace there too, with Cottonwood High School as her school, class of 2018. Team USA's profile says she was born with arthrogryposis, a condition affecting the joints in the lower body.

The Utah Sports Commission says she played for Utah's only competitive team at the time, the Salt Lake Wrecking Crew. The Daily Illini, the University of Illinois student newspaper, reported that she stayed with the club throughout high school as it became the Utah Rush.

When she came home from Tokyo in 2021, Cottonwood High and Murray honored her, KUTV reported. She remembered first watching the sport: "That looks gritty, rough, just competitive overall." And she pushed back on the idea that the Paralympics are "kind of a participatory event": "But it's an extremely high level of competition."

A U.S. national-team career

Ibanez went to the 2018 World Championships with the U.S. women and finished sixth, Team USA's archive profile says. In the U25 ranks she won two IWBF Women's U25 world titles, in 2019 and 2023, which the Utah Sports Commission says made her one of four athletes in the world to win consecutive U25 golds.

At the senior level she won bronze at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics and bronze at the 2022 IWBF World Championship, the NWBA says, and then silver at the Paris 2024 Paralympics.

In Tokyo, one of nine rookies on the U.S. team, she scored a basket with 3:45 left in the bronze medal game as the Americans pulled away from Germany for a 64-51 win on Sept. 4, 2021, TownLift reported. KSL counted her as the third person with Utah roots to win a medal at those Games.

The 2022 World Championships were played in Dubai in June 2023, and the U.S. women beat Germany 57-42 for bronze, their first medal in the women's competition in more than a decade, the International Paralympic Committee reported.

In Paris the United States beat Germany and Japan in group play, beat Great Britain 59-52 in the quarterfinals and China 50-47 in the semifinals, Paralympic results show. The Netherlands won the final 63-49 on Sept. 8, 2024. KPCW noted it was the U.S. team's third straight Paralympic podium.

"You could hardly hear yourself speak when you were in a gym, it was just roaring," she told KPCW of the Paris crowds.

In 2025 she helped the United States win the IWBF Americas Cup in Bogotá, Colombia, the NWBA reported. The IWBF reported that the U.S. women went unbeaten there and beat Brazil in the final.

Illinois

Ibanez played college wheelchair basketball at the University of Illinois, where Team USA's archive profile says she studied graphic design. The Illinois Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services listed her as No. 12 on its 2023-24 Fighting Illini women's roster, and the Daily Illini described her as a sixth-year senior in April 2024. The Utah Sports Commission says she helped Illinois to the No. 3 seed at the 2024 NWBA Collegiate Women's Nationals.

"I came here for legacy. I want to be able to pass that kind of stuff down to the people I'm playing with," she told the Daily Illini.

Honors and plans

The Utah Sports Commission lists her among its Adaptive Female Athlete of the Year honorees for wheelchair basketball.

In October 2024, after Paris, she told KPCW that until 2028 she planned to sharpen her offensive and defensive game by playing on a traveling team. She describes herself as a "midpointer," KPCW reported.

Her U25 world titles came in Thailand: in Suphanburi in 2019, when the United States beat Australia 62-25 in the final, the IWBF reported, and in Bangkok on Oct. 9, 2023, when it beat Great Britain for its third U25 world title. After the 2019 win she said in a release quoted by KUTV: "I'm getting a college education and I've played basketball in Europe and now Thailand. Unbelievable!"

The 2026 season

In January 2026 the NWBA named her to the 20-player High Performance Pool for the 2026 World Championships, after the Americas Cup title, listing her as "Ali Ibanez (Murray, Utah)." She was not on the final 12-player roster announced in May. She plays for the Utah Wheelin' Jazz, by the NWBA's January 2026 listing, with the LA 2028 Paralympic Games ahead.

She is one of the Utah natives followed on the homegrown Utah athletes hub.

Key facts:

• Athlete: Ali Ibanez, wheelchair basketball; Utah Wheelin' Jazz (NWBA Adult Division I)
• Hometown: Murray, Utah; Cottonwood High School, 2018
• Paralympics: bronze at Tokyo 2020, silver at Paris 2024
• World Championships: bronze, 2022, per the NWBA
• U25 Worlds: champion in 2019 and 2023, per the Utah Sports Commission
• Americas Cup: gold, 2025
• College: University of Illinois
• Utah start: Salt Lake Wrecking Crew, later the Utah Rush