U.S. swimmer Gia Pergolini carves name into Paralympic history
Gia Pergolini walked into the Paris La Défense Arena on Friday to compete in the women’s 100m backstroke finals knowing she had serious business to attend to.
At the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, the American 17-year-old swam an S13 world record time and knew heading into Paris that there were expectations to champion once more. The S13 classification is for athletes with less-severe visual impairments.
“I was just being a goofball in Tokyo, and then here, I’m like, OK, I have a title to defend,” Pergolini said. “I have this huge crowd watching, which was amazing.”
Now a 20-year-old student at Florida International University, Pergolini won Team USA’s first gold medal of the Paralympics. Her time of 1 minute, 4.93 seconds was just 0.3 second off the world record she set in Tokyo.
“It’s so unreal, I can’t really explain it into words,” she said. “But just hitting the wall and seeing my two biggest competitors come in, and knowing that I won the United States’ first gold medal is just so unreal and so incredible.”
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She said she has grown mentally and matured in those three years, but despite her experience, nerves were still a factor.
“I just kept saying to myself, ‘Worrying won’t change the result of the race,’” Pergolini said. “I just kept reminding myself to try and embody my little innocent 17-year-old self of just having fun and going out there and doing what I know best.”
As she walked out on deck Friday afternoon, the Atlanta native said she could hear her mom in the crowd despite the noise of fans who filled La Défense Arena. The energy was something Pergolini had not experienced in Tokyo, and she said she loved the attention this time around.
“I think I blacked out at one moment, but I remember getting in the water and hearing my mom,” Pergolini said. “I barely heard the crowd.”
Yet the crowd still got Pergolini thinking about the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games.
“I’m going to take it year by year, try to make it through these Games, but I mean being here and seeing how the French support the swimmers from France and their team is just so incredible and unreal,” Pergolini said. “I really want to experience that at L.A. at my home Games.”
Triathlon postponed because of Siene water quality
Paralympic triathlon competitions in Paris scheduled for Sunday have been postponed because of concerns about water quality in the Seine River after heavy rainfall, organizers said.
The 11 para triathlon events are now scheduled for Monday, if upcoming water testing allows, the Paris 2024 organizing committee and World Triathlon said in a joint statement.
Rainstorms hit the French capital Friday and Saturday. Heavy rains cause wastewater and runoff to flow into the river, leading to a rise in bacteria levels including E. coli.
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″It rained a lot Friday and then it also rained Saturday. So the international federation and the organizing committee ... out of a principle of precaution decided to delay all of the events for a day, probably until tomorrow,” Paris Deputy Mayor Pierre Rabadan told reporters later Sunday.
This is the second scheduled change for the para triathlon events. They had initially been scheduled to take place over two days, Sunday and Monday, but were moved to Sunday because of rain forecasts.
The disruption is another hiccup for the city’s efforts to clean up the river for future public swimming, one of Paris’ most ambitious promises ahead of hosting the Olympics and Paralympics this summer. The men’s individual triathlon event during the Paris Olympics was delayed and several test swims were canceled because of high E. coli levels.
Rabadan said prospects for the Paralympic triathlons going ahead Monday were looking up.
“I can’t tell you my exact level of confidence because it doesn’t matter,” Rabadan said. “The scientific results matter, so we will have it tomorrow, but the trend is actually positive to being able to have the competition tomorrow morning.”
The Paris Paralympics flame has been lit in the British village of Stoke Mandeville, widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games.
Lazreg Benel-Hadj, vice president of the French Swimming Federation, said that although some of the 53 athletes who took part in Olympic swimming competitions in the Seine fell ill afterward, none of those illnesses ″was linked to the water in the Seine.″
Rabadan said that athletic events in the river would continue past the Paralympics.
“Yes, for sure, we will continue,” he said. “As I said before, we’ll continue to have competition in the river. So many reasons for that. First one because athletes are happy with that, and second one because the quality of water will permit it in the future. So we will keep going on that way. And that’s a massive legacy of the Games.”
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