Paralympic Swimmer Wins Gold And Silver After Online Attacks About Disability

U.S. Paralympic swimmer Christie Raleigh Crossley has added two extra medals to their Paris tally.

The primary-time Paralympian gained the gold medal on Tuesday within the 100-meter backstroke S9, breaking the Paralympic report with a time of 1:07.02. On Wednesday, she swam to silver within the girls’s 100-meter freestyle S9. (Raleigh Crossley makes use of the pronouns she and they.)

Final week, the American swimmer set a world report after which gained a silver medal within the 50-meter freestyle S9 race on the identical day. However her second was tainted by on-line commenters, together with different athletes, who questioned her incapacity as a result of it’s not as seen as others.

“Individuals inform me I don’t ‘look disabled,’ however I’m a Paralympian — and I’m going for gold,” Raleigh Crossley mentioned afterwards in an as-told-to story printed on As we speak.com.

And she or he’s not executed but, with extra occasions nonetheless on her competitors schedule.

“I simply escape,” Raleigh Crossley, a mother of three, mentioned of the harassment, based on The Washington Put up. “Thank God I’ve my children right here. I went into that mode. I immersed myself outdoors of Crew USA. I took a step away from Crew USA para swimming all collectively.

“Simply reaching out to the individuals who do care about me has been essential,” she added.

Since final week, she’s obtained an outpouring of messages of help on social media, together with many from different para athletes.

The 37-year-old, a former faculty swimmer, was hit by a drunk driver in 2007, leaving them with spinal points. They have been hit by a automotive as a pedestrian the next 12 months and suffered mind accidents. A decade later, one other accident led to the invention of a tumor of their mind. They’ve paralysis on the left aspect of their physique on account of these incidents, and compete within the S9 class in opposition to athletes with comparable impairments.

Raleigh Crossley hopes to be an instance for athletes with less-visible disabilities.

“I need to present that Paralympians are greater than athletes who’re lacking limbs,” they instructed As we speak.com. “We aren’t simply individuals in wheelchairs. We aren’t all blind. There’s a spectrum of what makes somebody eligible and there are lots of athletes who’re lacking out as a result of they only don’t know. I need to assist children, the following era of Paralympians, to embrace their sport.”