(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The Olympic Games are underway in France, and the Paralympic Games are right around the corner.
Glen Ellyn native Ahalya Lettenberger is headed back, after taking a silver medal in the delayed Tokyo Games of 2020.
So even though Lettenberger is a Paralympic veteran, she doesn’t really know what to expect at the back-to-normal Paris games.
“I think it’s gonna be crazy. I keep trying to envision it. I’m so excited because I just… Like, people who have been to Games that weren’t Tokyo just say, like, the environment of walking on to the pool deck, and this huge audience cheering, is something like you would never experience otherwise. So that’s a thing I’m really excited for,” Lettenberger said.
And she’s not alone in not knowing what to expect.
“It’s like a reunion. We have a big chunk of the team that, this is their first Paralympics. But they’ve kind of been around the last couple years, and been to Worlds or other international meets. So it really is like a big reunion when we’re all able to get back together.”
That feeling of togetherness is something Lettenberger has treasured ever since her first para-swim meet, at ten years old.
“As a kid, with a visible disability, it was just hard. Walking onto the pool deck - or, wheeling onto the pool deck - and seeing all these people with all these different kinds of disabilities, it just completely shifted my perspective.”
Lettenberger has a form of arthrogryposis, a musculo-skeletal disorder that affects her lower body.
“Swimming really helped me accept and embrace my disability. And through engineering and medicine I really want to give back and help others find that independence.”
The Rice University grad is also a Marshall Scholar focusing on sports biomechanics, and her two-year study program in the UK begins right after the Games.
“My events are pretty early on, and they’re on back-to-back days, and then I’m done. So I’m hoping I get to go out into Paris and see a little bit then, but I won’t be staying after, because I have to come back here and prepare for England!”
Lettenberger will race the 100 meter breaststroke and the 400 meter freestyle events, in the same pool used for the Olympic Games.
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