Alyssa Gialamas swam in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. But unlike freestyle superstar Katie Ledecky, who won her the 14th Olympic medal of her career at the Paris games this summer, Gialamas is not a household name.
Gialamas’s 21 American records in the pool, though, are nothing to sneeze at. She’s a paralympic sensation who has a joint condition called arthrogryposis and uses long-leg braces to walk. She took up swimming at age 3 for physical therapy and in high school in Illinois became the first athlete with a physical disability to win six state titles. She swam on her college team and competed at the London and Rio Paralympic Games. In 2019, she won gold and silver medals in Lima, Peru at the Parapan American Games.
Gialamas’s motto — “You adapt, you overcome” — is worth thinking about as 4,400 athletes from 168 delegations compete in the Paris Paralympic Games through Sept. 8, all of them redefining what it means to be capable and successful in sports and beyond. Gialamas is not only transforming perceptions of athletic ability but also how we communicate about disability and being "other." Through her platform and her voice, Gialamas is helping to reshape the narrative, pushing society to move beyond outdated notions of what it means to live with a disability. Our communication, for better or worse, is shaped by what we see and what we’re exposed to, and discrimination often stems from this narrow lens. Gialamas challenges these perceptions, showing that being different is not a limitation but an opportunity to redefine what's possible.
The mantra, “You adapt, you overcome” is also driving her forward in a new field, as founder of AMG Fitness, an organization that offers adaptive, at-home workouts for people with disabilities. AMG stands for “Adapt, Move & Gain.”
Gialamas launched the nonprofit during the pandemic in 2020, when gyms were closed and able-bodied people turned to workouts streamed on Instagram. “I realized that as much as everything went digital, there weren't a lot of digital resources for the disabled group,” she said in an interview with Alphy.
Her own experience motivated her, as did data showing that one in four people live with a disability, and that they face greater health risks than others. “People with disabilities are five times more likely to be not as aerobic as people without disabilities,” she said. “They’re three times more likely to have heart disease, diabetes and obesity. As I saw those statistics, I was like, ‘Why isn’t anyone talking about this?’ They’re statistics that make your jaw drop.”
With strategic partners including the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability, the Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association, and CVS Health, Gialamas appears to have found a population that is underserved. This includes those who may not show obvious physical impairment, such as seniors, military personnel, and people recovering from surgery.
As the Paris Paralympic Games continue, paralympians are breaking world records and earning medals in everything from powerlifting to volleyball to blind soccer.
Consider Matt Stutzman, an American armless archer who won gold this year and set a new record by earning 149 of 150 possible points in the men’s individual archery competition. Or Australia’s Ella Sabljak helped her country (as one of three women on the team) to win gold in wheelchair rugby. Or Tokito Oda of Japan and Diede de Groot of the Netherlands, hailed as “GOATS” (greatest of all time) in the wheelchair tennis world.
Wheelchair tennis is trending on Google, and for good reason. (The Google doodle Sept. 2, 3, and 4 didn’t hurt — it depicted a pair of birds in wheelchairs playing tennis in the Jardins des Tuileries.) At Wimbledon, the size of a tennis court is 78 feet long by 27 feet wide and the net is 3 feet high. The dimensions are the same at the Paralympics. The only difference is that the athletes must roll themselves to the ball in time to hit it.
It’s a feat that gives new meaning to the phrase, “Tennis, anyone?” Along with all the other Paralympic sports, it’s also an eye-opening example of people refusing to be defined by their disabilities and how far they’ll go to adapt, overcome and defy the odds. It’s about potential, not limitations, and allowing opportunities for talent, whatever package a person comes in, to shine.
Reflect AI by Alphy is an AI communication compliance solution that detects and flags language that is harmful, unlawful, and unethical in digital communication, including disabilities discrimination in the workplace and in fair lending practices. Alphy was founded to reduce the risk of litigation from harmful and discriminatory communication while helping employees communicate more effectively.
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