Noelle Lambert and Ryan Medrano were on Fiji together on 43rd season of long-running CBS reality show.
Noelle Lambert and Ryan Medrano were competitors on "Survivor 43" and now the former reality TV stars will represent the United States in the Paris Paralympic Games starting in late August.
Lambert, who went to high school at
Londonderry (N.H.), lost her left leg in a moped accident in 2016 when she was a lacrosse player at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Medrano, who went to
Trivium Prep (Goodyear, Ariz.), was born three months prematurely and has mild cerebral palsy. Early in life his parents were told he wouldn't walk.
It's the second Olympics for Lambert, who took sixth in the women's 100-meter T63 race. T63 classification is for above-the-knee amputees.
Medrano is competing in his first Olympics but won silver at the 2024 World Championships in the 400-meter T38 race (coordination impairments).
Neither Medrano or Lambert were handed anything on Survivor as one episode showed an emotional Lambert battling through an obstacle challenge. She kept falling off a balance beam but kept pushing and eventually won the challenge.
The New Hampshire native made the merge but was voted out on Day 19 while Medrano also made the merge and lasted until Day 17.
