Eagan swimmer Mallory Weggemann defended her Paralympic gold medal in the women’s 200-meter individual medley in the SM7 classification on Saturday in Paris. And there was a very special fan in the stands to watch her do it: her 17-month-old daughter, Charlotte.
In her fourth Paralympics but first as a mother, Weggemann won her fourth gold medal, setting a Paralympic record with a time of of 2 minutes, 53.29 seconds, nearly a second better than her previous mark. Weggemann, also the world record holder in the event, led at each turn and finished nearly 4 seconds ahead of silver medalist Tess Routliffe of Canada. Julia Gaffney of the United States took bronze.
In a television interview after the race, Weggemann said she looked at a photo of herself and her husband with her daughter on the night she was born in the ready room waiting for her race.
“I thought of all the strength it took to bring her into this world,” she said, “and I thought of how much I knew in my heart of hearts that they could finish this job.”
Since the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago, Weggemann and her husband, Jay Snyder, directed a documentary, “Watershed,” about their quest to become parents.
“Here we are doing it as a family and there’s no greater joy in this world,” she said Saturday.
It was grounding, she said, to go back her hotel after her preliminary swim to breast feed Charlotte and put her down for a nap. “I realized in that moment that no matter what I do here at the pool, to her, I’m just always mama,” Weggemann added.
After receiving her sixth career Paralympics medal, Weggemann got to hold her daughter and show her “she can be anything she dreams of in this world.”
