When US swimmer Mallory Weggemann was paralysed on account of a routine epidural
injection going wrong at the age of 19, the young woman thought that her
swimming career had come to an end. Four years later, Mallory Weggemann struck
gold at the London Paralympics 2012. This time at Tokyo, Mallory won gold at
the 200m individual medley.

Mallory Weggemann had captained her high school swimming team and was
hoping to do well at the sport. When she was paralysed after taking the
epidural injection in 2008, she felt that her sporting dreams had to come to an
end. It was Mallory’s sister Christin who then took her to watch the 2008 US
Paralympic Trials near their Minnesota home.

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What Mallory saw there, set her on the road to glory.

“I looked at my sister and said, ‘How cool would it be if I could be here
in four years?’” Weggemann told Sports Illustrated. Within a week, Weggemann
was back in the pool, learning to swim without her legs.

Living with paralysis was hard, she says, to retrain herself to do the most
basic of things — getting dressed, putting on shoes and being able to get in
and out of bed alone. But she learned to not feel sorry for herself.

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“We all carry circumstance in our life. We all carry hardship. We’ve all
moved ourselves through trauma and loss, but we are more than our circumstance,”
Weggemann said.

One year after her injury, Mallory started her degree at Gardner-Webb University
where she became part of the swim team. Four years after going to see the
Paralympic trials, Mallory Weggemann actually found herself on the Paralympic
stage in London in 2012.

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Defying all odds, Mallory won gold at the 2012 London Paralympics. Two years
later, she suffered another injury after which doctors advised her to retire
from the sport. But retire she wouldn’t. On Monday, Mallory Weggemann is going
to be back in the swimming pool at the Tokyo Paralympics. With five events to
go, Mallory and her family will have their eyes set on her returning to the podium
again.