U.S. Paralympian Says She Was ‘Verbally Accosted’ And Bullied After Winning Silver Medal

Christie Raleigh Crossley of Team USA won silver in the women’s 50-meter freestyle S10 final. Michael Reaves via Getty Images Paralympic swimmer Christie Raleigh Crossley has spoken out about being bullied and having her disability questioned in the wake of her silver medal win last week. “It’s so great that I just broke a world record and won my first Paralympic medal on the same day,” the athlete said, according to USA Today. “But I got off a bus and got verbally accosted by another athlete from another country.” Advertisement “To be told online by all of these bullies that I’m somehow not as disabled as I appear just because I can swim faster than them is pretty devastating,” she added. The 37-year-old started her Paralympics career on Thursday by setting a world record in a heat of the 50-meter freestyle S9 race with a time of 27.28. In the final later that day, which combined swimmers in both the S9 and S10 classifications, she finished second to China’s Yi Chen, who took gold with a 27.10 swim. Her happy moment was dampened by negative comments on social media casting doubt on her disability, including from several fellow athletes. The classes from S1 to S10 are for athletes with physical impairments competing in freestyle, butterfly and backstroke events. Raleigh Crossley, a former Florida State University swimmer who dreamed of competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was in a car accident caused by a drunken driver in 2007, leaving her with spinal issues. The New Jersey mom of three opened up to Today.com last week about her journey to the Paralympics, describing how “I’ve dealt with bullying because I’m not missing limbs or because people think I don’t look disabled.’” She hopes to raise awareness to redefine what a Paralympian looks like. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/christie-raleigh-crossley-paralympics_n_66d58c77e4b05dc832132232