From a shark attack to Paralympic silver: Truwit’s remarkable journey

Even in the story-filled world of the Paralympic Games, where things are never just one color, it’s hard to beat being bitten by a shark one year and swimming for medals in Paris the next.

Yet that is the true story behind the success of Ali Truwit, the 24-year-old former Yale competitive swimmer and now silver medalist in the S10 400-meter freestyle at La Défense Arena on Thursday night, who in 2023 fought off a shark in the waters of the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and saved her own life by running 70 meters to a boat after losing part of her left leg.

Truwit was always athletic, running, swimming, jumping, and had just completed a marathon before she went on a celebratory snorkeling trip with her friend Sophie on a bleak May morning, a few days after graduating from Yale University. After the attack, after Sophie had stopped the blood flow by applying a makeshift tourniquet as the boat raced back to land, she was airlifted to hospital, where doctors fought to save her life and then operated on her leg, ultimately amputating it just below the knee.

What followed was tough – the mental struggle to cope with the loss of a limb and an imagined life, and pains both real and phantom that seared through her body, especially at night. Water became a phobia. But, incredibly, just four months after the attack, she contacted her old swimming coach James Barone and asked him to help her again. By late October, she had swum her first para competition, where meeting other athletes was a turning point. Less than a year later, after four minutes and 31 seconds in the water, second behind Canada’s Aurélie Rivard, she now has a silver medal.

Where does that extraordinary ability to bounce back come from? “My parents did an incredible job of raising me and my three brothers to be adaptable and to try to see the positives in life and appreciate everything that we’ve been given,” she says, grinning in her swimsuit and swim cap, “and so when I was faced with a life-changing trauma, I worked on seeing the positives and focusing on gratitude and letting that carry me and adapt to the situation that I was in.

“But I would also say that when you are truly confronted with death and you understand what a second chance at life means, you want to make the most of it. I have worked to do that and it has not been without an incredible, incredible support system.”

The water, once a friend and then a foe, is still a struggle. “Every day is something new for me that brings back a new memory of the attack because I was aware the whole time, and honestly, in the beginning I thought I would overcome the fear and that was it. I’ve learned through this journey that this is not what it looks like, that there are going to be days where it’s great and there are going to be days where I have to fight to get that love back, but I’ll say I’m at a 90-10 right now to really feel comfortable and happy in the water.”

And after that? Spending time with the 60 or so loved ones, including her parents and Sophie, who are in Paris, and maybe a little shopping.

Alice Tai claimed her second gold medal and fourth medal of the Games, storming through the field to win the S8 50m freestyle on a joyous night for ParalympicsGB in the glittering splendor of the pool. Tai, who opted to amputate her right leg below the knee to relieve years of pain just two years ago, was visibly shocked. “It’s usually such a close race, I’m more shocked that I went sub-30, I’m getting so close to my old times,” she said. “The 50 is the toughest [race]“My diving has been affected quite a bit by my amputation. I didn’t think I would be able to dive under 30 again in the coming year.”

Just 20 minutes earlier, Becky Redfern had won the SB13 100m breaststroke in 1.68 sec, her first gold after silvers in Tokyo and Rio. “It feels really surreal,” she said. “I was almost expecting someone to come out of lane one and beat me. A gold medal is just amazing.”

The youngest member of the ParalympicsGB team, 13-year-old Iona Winnifrith, won silver in the SB7 100m breaststroke, behind neutral athlete Mariia Pavlova.