Paralympic Swimmer Wins Gold And Silver After Online Attacks About Disability

U.S. Paralympic swimmer Christie Raleigh Crossley has added two more medals to their Paris tally.
The first-time Paralympian won the gold medal on Tuesday in the 100-meter backstroke S9, breaking the Paralympic record with a time of 1:07.02. On Wednesday, she swam to silver in the women’s 100-meter freestyle S9. (Raleigh Crossley uses the pronouns she and they.)
Last week, the American swimmer set a world record and then won a silver medal in the 50-meter freestyle S9 race on the same day. But her moment was tainted by online commenters, including other athletes, who questioned her disability because it’s not as visible as others.
“People tell me I don’t ‘look disabled,’ but I’m a Paralympian — and I’m going for gold,” Raleigh Crossley said afterwards in an as-told-to story published on Today.com.
And she’s not done yet, with more events still on her competition schedule.
“I just escape,” Raleigh Crossley, a mom of three, said of the harassment, according to The Washington Post. “Thank God I have my kids here. I went into that mode. I immersed myself outside of Team USA. I took a step away from Team USA para swimming all together.
“Just reaching out to the people who do care about me has been important,” she added.
Since last week, she’s received an outpouring of messages of support on social media, including many from other para athletes.
The 37-year-old, a former college swimmer, was hit by a drunk driver in 2007, leaving them with spinal issues. They were hit by a car as a pedestrian the following year and suffered brain injuries. A decade later, another accident led to the discovery of a tumor in their brain. They have paralysis on the left side of their body as a result of these incidents, and compete in the S9 category against athletes with similar impairments.
Raleigh Crossley hopes to be an example for athletes with less-visible disabilities.
“I want to show that Paralympians are more than athletes who are missing limbs,” they told Today.com. “We are not just people in wheelchairs. We are not all blind. There is a spectrum of what makes someone eligible and there are many athletes who are missing out because they just don’t know. I want to help kids, the next generation of Paralympians, to embrace their sport.”