Paying It Forward: Ali Truwit Champions Team USA Paralympic Swimming

When Ali Truwit dove into the pool at the Paralympic Games Paris 2024, the world saw a powerhouse. An athlete whose performance broke the American record in the 100-meter backstroke and the 400-meter freestyle S10 events. A swimmer at the pinnacle of her sport.

But behind the medals, behind the swimming cap and goggles, was a story of survival that began a year prior – and a realization that the journey to representing Team USA is one that many athletes can’t afford to take alone.

On May 24, 2023, 10 days after she ran a marathon on Mother’s Day with her mom and three days after she graduated from Yale University, Truwit’s life changed forever.

While snorkeling in Turks and Caicos, celebrating with her friend, Sophie Pilkinton, a shark bit Truwit’s lower-left leg. A medevac flew her to Miami, where she received two life-saving surgeries. A week later, she underwent a partial leg amputation in New York.

Amidst such a traumatic event, she remained focused on the good things in life.

The resilience and determination she developed from her days with the Chelsea Piers Swim Team and Yale Women’s Swimming & Diving team set her on a path to shine, no matter how dark the moment. The year that followed was defined by a choice: to focus on what was lost or to lean into what remained.

Truwit chose the latter.

Six weeks after the attack, she found herself back in the place that gave her peace: the pool.

One session after another, she started to find her stride in the pool and the itch to compete came back stronger than ever. Nerves, fear, flashbacks – everything started to subside the more she worked at understanding this change.

“Can I still compete?” was the lone question that remained.

In late September, she did just that. To the surprise of her parents, Truwit asked if they could take her to a Paralympic swim meet, only three and a half months removed from losing her foot and part of her leg.

There, a Paralympic swimmer emerged. No matter the result, nor where she finished, swimming competitively was a massive step in her journey.

But first place never felt so good. At the U.S. Paralympic Team Trials – Swimming just nine months later, she finished the 100-meter backstroke in 1:08:98, a new personal best, topping her previous best time of 1:09:50 before the attack. It was the moment Truwit realized that her limits were far beyond what she – or anyone else – imagined.

“I think I’ve come into this with a new perspective of really knowing that I’m stronger than I think and that I have more in me than I thought,” she said.

With her sights set on the next goal, Truwit began a meteoric rise to the world stage. At the Paralympic Games Paris 2024, she delivered a performance for the ages. She captured two silver medals and shattered two American records (in the 100-meter backstroke S10 and the 400-meter freestyle S10).

But Paris gave Truwit more than medals. It gave her an even deeper understanding of the Paralympic Movement and the athletes who make it so powerful.

“I joined the Paralympic Movement two years ago and found so much hope and healing and strength in the movement,” Truwit remarked.

When she first joined, Truwit said that she had always looked at Paralympians with immense respect for their strength, courage and grit. But becoming a Paralympic athlete herself gave her a new perspective on just how elite they are.

To medal in Paris, Truwit needed to swim roughly the same times she had achieved when she was recruited to Yale – this time with one leg instead of two. Her backstroke needed to be faster than she had ever swam it with two legs.

That realization changed the way she viewed the athletes alongside her.

For Truwit, the Paralympic Movement became a source of hope, healing and strength. And as she became more immersed in the community, she also began to see another opportunity: creating greater recognition for the performances of Paralympic athletes.

While the prize money has become an increasingly visible part of elite sport, Truwit noticed a discrepancy between the financial awards Olympians and Paralympians receive at competitions. She wanted to help close that gap – not only financially, but in the respect and legitimacy it represents for Paralympic athletes.

That vision led to the creation of the Stronger Than You Think Performance Incentive Fund.

Through her Stronger Than You Think Foundation, Truwit made a gift of $500,000 to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Foundation (USOPF) to launch the fund, which will provide financial awards to U.S. Paralympic swimmers who place first through third or set world records at designated competitions leading up to the Paralympic Games Los Angeles 2028.

“When I look at Olympic swimming and see the checks the swimmers get to hold when they win events at various world competitions, I want that for Para athletes too,” Truwit said.

“Providing financial rewards to U.S. Paralympic athletes adds legitimacy, and drives support and excitement around athletes, helping to drive awareness and momentum for the overall Paralympic Movement, too.”

For Truwit, the goal goes beyond putting a check in athletes’ hands. It’s about celebrating Paralympic athletes for the elite competitors they are and helping more people recognize their performances on the world stage.

The Stronger Than You Think Performance Incentive Fund debuts Aug. 28-30 at the 2026 Para Pan Pacific Championships, held in Walnut, California. Eligible U.S. swimmers competing in LA 2028 medal events will receive $3,472 for first place, $2,083 for second place and $1,389 for third place, with a $10,000 award for breaking a world record.

For Truwit, seeing the first awards distributed made the idea she had worked toward for more than a year tangible.

“I feel like I’ve been waiting to get here, to see our athletes receive it and know what it’s going to help them do,” she said. “It’s been really cool to see their response and their excitement.”

The checks themselves carry significance beyond their monetary value.

“I hope (U.S. Para swimmers) feel the respect and the awe that we all have when we watch,” she said. “It’s a continuous work to try to gain the legitimacy and the respect around the movement. And I hope this adds to that.”

She also hopes the awards provide some relief from the financial pressure that comes with competing at the highest level.

“It’s definitely a financial burden to be a professional athlete and to have to afford training and travel and equipment and then the medical costs that come with it,” Truwit said. “And so I hope that side of it, too, allows them to focus on being the best athlete they can be just a little bit more.”

Additional awards will follow at a to-be-named World Series meet in both the 2027 and 2028 seasons. These events serve as vital qualification checkpoints as Paralympic swimmers aim to represent Team USA in 2028.

Looking toward LA 2028, Truwit hopes athletes will be able to tell her that the fund made a meaningful difference.

“I would love to get to LA28 and hear from other athletes the impact that this fund has had on their training, on their mental and physical stress, on their ability to pour more into their training and worry less,” she said.

The opportunity to support other athletes is deeply personal.

“It means everything to be able to get to do this truly,” she said. “I’m such a big believer in the power of sport. I think for me firsthand, I’ve experienced it and I believed it before that movement is medicine, that sport offers us so much hope and strength and possibility of who we could be.”

Now, she’s working to make sure other athletes have the opportunity to experience that same power.

For more information about the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Foundation and Truwit’s Stronger Than You Think Foundation, visit teamusa.com/foundation and strongerthanyouthink.org.