"I walked into La Defense Arena feeling like I have already won with the fact that I am walking in here a year after a shark attack."
Twelve months ago, Ali Truwit was physically and mentally in recovery mode. The American, whose maternal grandmother was Irish, was learning to take her first steps with a prosthetic leg three months after a horrific shark attack altered the course of her life.
At that stage the Yale graduate, who was a key part of the women's swimming and diving programme at the college, had yet to return to the water.
In July 2023, just six weeks after her amputation, she dipped her toes for the first time, the lure of the pool too strong for someone who has dedicated herself to pushing up and down the lanes.
By September she was back training again with her former coach James Barone, yet the scar tissue was understandly still there; Truwit couldn’t look at the prosthetic – she would always cover it up – and didn’t want others to see it either. Training was more solitary until an unplanned meeting with a former team-mate in November.
That emotional interaction was the tipping point in her self-image in the pool. Emboldened, Truwit decided to embrace her new identity and competed in her first Para swimming event.
A month later she medalled at the US National Championships in Orlando.
Suddenly the Paris Games was a consideration. Six months later qualification was secured, Truwit competing in the S10 category, in which swimmers have a physical impairment affecting one of their joints.
A group of 50 supporters will be in the stands at the noisy La Defense Arena this evening where the 24-year-old goes in search of glory in her 400m freestyle event (4.50pm Irish time).
A runout in the 100m freestyle on Sunday was a good loosener for her preferred events, the 400m free and tomorrow’s 100m backstroke.
On course to claim her first Paralympic medal - the competitive juices from her college days evident in securing the fastest qualifying time for tonight’s final – Truwit is simply grateful for the journey the journey that has led her to the French capital.
"I can’t believe this is where I am," she tells RTÉ Sport. "It’s on the shoulders of so much support and love. I think choosing to try and make the Paralympics and being part of the Para community was the most healing decision I could have made in the first year of recovery."
Truwit’s life can be separated into the before and after 24 May of last year.
The then 22-year-old, who had run the Copenhagen marathon with her mother Jody 10 days previously, was enjoying the start of her summer as a Yale graduate.
Along with her friend Sophie Pilkinton, the pair, as they had done many times before, went snorkelling in Turks and Caicos, a group of islands located in the North Atlantic some 575 miles southeast of Miami.
After an afternoon in the water, the pair decided to swim back to the boat when Truwit thought a dolphin had sidled up close by. Suddenly the realisation dawned that it was in fact a shark, who began aggressively ramming the women from underneath.
With the boat 75 yards away, the screams were in vain as Truwit felt a gushing pain in her left leg. In the life-or-death situation, they somehow managed to swim back to the boat.
The severity of the attack was clear to see once they were scrambled back on board; the shark had taken Truwit’s left foot and part of her leg.
Pilkinton, a medical student, tied a tourniquet around her friend's upper thigh, saving her life, but not the leg.
After an initial procedure to remove the infected and dead tissue, Truwit was flown to New York for a transtibial amputation on her 23rd birthday. She was now a right below the knee amputee.
The physical change was a hurdle, yet the psychological one arguably even greater; Truwit says she struggled to shower early on as it had a triggering effect from the attack.
Slowly but surely she built herself back up and is embracing the latest challenge in taking on the world’s best.
"Walking out at the Paralympics in an arena like that (La Defense) is one of those pinch me moments," she says.
"Obviously I want to perform my best and make my coach, my country, my family and friends proud.
"I walked into this arena feeling like I have already won with the fact that I am walking in here a year after a shark attack."
The post-Paris picture will see Truwit take part in a number of speaking engagements and book a holiday away before starting work as a consultant with McKinsey.
Her story has given rise to hope for others, the sheer volume of support taking her somewhat aback.
"It’s something I never expected," she says. "Every time I hear that my story is helping someone else, that heals me and makes meaning for me out of an otherwise senseless trauma that happened to me."
Follow all the action from the Paralympic Games with our coverage on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app, watch live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player or listen to updates and live commentaries on RTÉ Radio.
