US swimmers haul in silver, but an accusation of cheating becomes hurtful

PARIS — Following a glittering lights and sound show, day one of the swimming finals commenced at Paris La Defense Arena featuring a lively audience that showed up in sizable numbers. 

Against this backdrop, three USA swimmers including Ellie Marks, Christie Raleigh-Crossley and Grace Nuhfer all earned silver medals in their respective events.Marks earned her second consecutive silver medal in the women’s 50-meter freestyle S6 final with a time of 32.90 seconds.

In three Paralympic Games, the 34-year-old from Colorado Springs, Colorado, now has six medals including two golds, two silvers and two bronzes. 

Marks said that despite competing in the opening day of swimming, she tried to keep things as normal as possible. 

“I woke up, I ate food, I put on a swimsuit, and we went down the pool once — that’s about it,” Marks said. 

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Her second-place finish came behind Chinese swimmer Jiang Yuyan, who set a Paralympic record time of 32.59. Ukraine’s Anna Hontar finished in third. 

Marks, a recipient of the 2016 Pat Tillman Award, refers to herself as an “accidental athlete,” as she took up swimming as part of her rehab following an injury she experienced while deployed as a soldier in Iraq in 2010. She will compete in four additional events, including the SM6 200 individual medley, and the 50 butterfly and 100 breaststroke, both in the S6 classification. 

Christie Raleigh-Crossley medals, opens up on criticism about her disability

Christie Raleigh-Crossley set a world record in the preliminary heat of her 50 freestyle S9 race, touching the wall at 27.28. The final combined swimmers in the S9 and S10 classifications, and she finished second to China’s Yi Chen, who won the gold medal with a time of 27.10.. Aurélie Rivard took third place in the event. 

It was a difficult day for Raleigh-Crossley, who said she had received criticism from fellow athletes about competing in the S9 race. In para sport, athlete classifications are based on the degree of impairment as determined by a trained physician, but the lines between classifications can be blurry and there has long been controversy surrounding the process. 

“It's so great that I just broke a world record and won my first Paralympic medal on the same day,” Raleigh-Crossley said. “But I got off a bus and got verbally accosted by another athlete from another country.”

Raleigh-Crossley fought through tears to explain the challenges of her disability and how it has impacted her life. 

“To be told online by all of these bullies that I’m somehow not as disabled as I appear just because I can swim faster than them is pretty devastating.” 

Raleigh-Crossley said she had to meet with a representative for athlete safety in the Paralympic Village.

Raleigh-Crossley survived several accidents which led to multiple issues in her back, neck, and brain. Then, in 2018, during a snowball fight with her son while on vacation, she was hit on the head with a ball of ice by mistake. When doctors examined her brain, they discovered bleeding and a blood tumor which required removing part of her skull in order to extract this tumor. The bleeding and procedure led to paralysis in her left side. 

As a result, weakness in her muscles still persists. The mother of three from Toms River, New Jersey, still has three events left: the 100 backstroke S9, 100 freestyle S9 and 100 butterfly S9.

Grace Nuhfer wraps up the USA’s silver night

In USA’s final swimming event of the night, Grace Nuhfer picked up a silver in the women’s 100 butterfly S13 for her first Paralympic medal with a time of 1:03.88. She finished second to Carlotta Gilli of Italy, who clocked in at 1:03.27, and in third place was Muslima Odilova of Uzbekistan. 

Nuhfer, making her Paralympic debut, is a butterfly specialist out of Greenwood, Indiana, and is currently a senior studying business analytics data at the University of Akron.

“I love racing and being a competitor so it was nice to bring a medal home,” Nuhfer said. “It was so much fun to race with all the girls in my classification. Having all the support from back home in Indiana means more than winning a medal.” 

Fellow team USA teammate Oliva Chambers finished fifth in the women’s 100 butterfly S13 event. She has two events left to earn a medal: the 50 freestyle S13 and 200 IM SM13.