Paralympian Jessica Long Reflects on Her Journey to Gold Medal Glory
What started as fun times in her grandparents' pool turned into a career as a 23-time Paralympic medalist.
"I just had...such determination to just prove to everyone that I could do it," she shared. "And I think that even stems from myOriginally from Siberia, Jessica was diagnosed as a baby with fibular hemimelia, a condition that for her meant the absence of numerous bones in her legs and feet. An American family, the Longs, adopted her from an orphanage when she was 13 months old.
"We had seen a picture of Jessica ahead of time, so when they called, we just knew she was the one for us," her adoptive mother,, said. "Like, it didn't matter what the disability was. We just knew she was meant for us."Eventually, Jessica underwent 25 surgeries, the first of which took place when she was 18 months old to amputate her legs below the knees and fit her with prosthetics.
"It was so hard, like so incredibly hard," the athlete remembered. "There was so much pain. Every time I grew, I had to go back in for a surgery. And I remember just being really, really scared but also, like, knowing exactly what to do. Like as a 3-year-old, I knew to crawl on top of the operating table.", Jessica joined a swim team at age 10. Two years later, she competed at the Paralympic Games in Athens, where she won her first gold medal.
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