If There’s a Will, There’s a Wave, Paralyzed Woman Swims to World Champion Fame

Paralympic gold medalist Mallory Weggemann is not only a record-breaking swimmer, she’s a 15-time world champion, an Espy-Award winner, founder of a social impact agency, and now, an author!

Executive producer for ‘the four’, Jamie Thompson was able to catch up with the talented athlete to talk about overcoming challenges, and finding yourself exactly where you need to be.

Mallory was 18-years-old when she became paralyzed from the waist down due to complications from a procedure. “ I walked in for what was to become my third and final epidural injection for back pain,” she said, “and I never walked out.” At that moment, her hopes for swimming seemed to drown while her fears raised to the surface. “Everything I knew had changed… it was so isolating.”

Just a little over two months after her surgery, she learned about the ‘Paralympic Movement’.  “I went to the 2008 trials for Beijing as a spectator,” Mallory explained. “They were being hosted in Minnesota at the University of Minnesota pool, and two days later, I went back to that pool deck and met with a coach and I got back in the water for the first time.”

From that point on, she started her journey to becoming so much more than just a woman in a wheelchair. “I think I’ve found that those hardships, those moments in our lives that leave us questioning kind of ‘what’s next?’. They’re typically the moments that lead us to exactly where we’re meant to go.”

To learn more about Mallory’s journey, and her book, Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience to Overcome Circumstance – watch the video above, or .