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3 Paralympians With Touching Backstories

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Casper Libero chapter.

The 2024 Paris Paralympics just ended, leaving us with many inspiring stories. Today we are going to check out three of these heartwarming backstories for you to get to know important athletes who made it to the Paralympic Games – even with several difficulties in their trajectory.

Beth Gomes

Elizabeth Rodrigues Gomes – or Beth Gomes- is a Brazilian Paralympic athlete. Beth competes in various athletics events. Her specialty is the discus throw in the F53 class.

Beth was a volleyball player all her life. However, at 27 years old, she had to stop playing due to her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

Beth had a hard time dealing with the disease, developing depression that intensified throughout the years. She even tried suicide. Without her parents to support her, Beth was then referred to the Municipal Disability Council of the city of Santos, where she was introduced to wheelchair basketball, since, with the evolution of the disease, she lost the movement of her legs and needed a wheelchair.

In 2006, Beth had a new multiple sclerosis outbreak that paralyzed the entire right side of her body, especially her fingers – that kept closed – making it hard to play basketball. Because of that, she started in athletics, competing in discus throw and shot put.

Even with everething that happened to her, Beth did not give up, and today she carries many medals and records with her. She currently holds the world record for discus throw, and this year at the Paris Paralympics, she broke the world record in the shot put in the F53 class while competing against F54 athletes. Beth has three Paralympic medals, two gold and one silver.

Ali Truwit

Ali Truwit is a North American Paralympic swimmer. She was an athlete at Yale college until graduation.

When Truwit graduated, she and a friend from the Yale swimming team decided to explore the Atlantic waters when, all of a sudden, a shark appeared, biting off Ali’s left foot. 

Both athletes had to swim for a while back to their snorkeling boat. Ali’s friend quickly mobilized to stop the bleeding. Truwit was then flown by helicopter to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, where she underwent surgeries.

Ali successfully recovered from an infection but she still had one surgery left: an amputation. On May 31st, her 23rd birthday, she had her leg amputated below the knee. 

Truwit had a hard time dealing with the accident and the amputation. She started hating what she saw in the mirror, a 23 year old girl freshly out of college with an amputated leg. That was not who she was expecting to be in her 20’s.

However, Ali turned her back to adversity and with psychological help and physiotherapy, she went back to the pool. 15 months later, she got into the US team to compete at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. Truwit went back home with two silver medals and two American records in just 48 hours.

Ibrahim Al Hussein

Ibrahim is a Paralympic swimmer from the refugee team. He fell in love with swimming from a very young age since his father was a swimming coach. 

In 2012, when the conflicts in Syria were getting worse, Ibrahim and his family had to leave their country. His parents and his 13 siblings left their home seeking a safer place to live, although, at 22 years old, he was left behind. 

The athlete’s life changed when one of his friends got shot when leaving his house. When he went running to help, a bomb exploded. Ibrahim lost his right leg and his left ankle was severely injured. Due to the war, finding proper medical care was extremely difficult, so who took care of his wounds was, in fact, a dentist.

After the incident, the swimmer was in a wheelchair and required extensive medical care. Because of that, he thought it was time to look for a better place to live where he could receive proper care. Ibrahim crossed the Eufrates river to Turkey and then traveled to Istanbul, where he met other Syrians who helped him to find a place to live.

From Istanbul, he went to Greece, where he met a doctor who gave him prosthetics. A club took him not as a swimmer, but as a wheelchair basketball player. For a long time, Ibrahim worked cleaning places while training heavily. He started being recognized when he won a championship in Athens. He was then invited to the Greece Swimming National Championship, where he won a gold and a silver medal.

At the 2016 Rio Paralympics, he was the flag bearer for the first Refugee Paralympic Team, carrying the Paralympic Flag in Maracanã.

How can one not be inspired? These people overcame huge problems in their lives, problems most people could never even imagine. Telling these stories is important for society to understand how unacceptable it is not to value these athletes. They are the future.

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The article above was edited by Ana Beatriz Aith.

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Isabella Lutiano

Casper Libero '27

Atualmente cursando o segundo semestre de jornalismo na Faculdade Cásper Líbero.