(soft music)
- I'm a female and I live with a disability,
so I've kind of got both those things going right now,
but both are fights that are happening in our society.
Swimming was my way to move past that.
It was my way to feel connected
to the life before my injury,
while also leading me to a future.
To be able to be a woman in sport in today's day and age,
it's empowering, because we get to
utilize that platform of sport to spark a conversation
that transcends our field of play.
There are young girls that are coming up behind us
that are watching what we do.
I think that's given me a lot of fire in my belly
as I go towards Tokyo 2020.
My name is Mallory Weggemann,
and I am a Paralympic Gold and Bronze Medalist
and two-time Paralympian.
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The conversation we're having as women in sports
is no different than the conversation that's being had
for women in business and in the workforce.
The difference there is sport unifies us
in ways that so many other things don't.
I grew up in Minnesota,
and I started swimming when I was seven years old,
competed in high school all four years,
swam varsity and was captain senior year,
and then after high school graduation
is when my journey with the sport kind of took a shift
following my paralysis.
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It was a very freak thing that happened.
I literally walked into a clinic one day
to get what supposed to be my third and final
epidural injection for back pain,
and I simply never walked out.
And I was awake for the procedure.
I remember everything about it,
down to the second that I was paralyzed.
It was seven months after high school graduation
and two months before my 19th birthday.
I was already trying to figure out who I was,
what I wanted to do with life,
and everything that I knew changed.
I'll never forget the first time that I got to go
out on a pass from the hospital.
I felt like a deer in headlights.
I felt so incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin.
I felt like everybody was staring at me,
but the biggest thing I struggled with
was in the entire afternoon at the Mall of America,
which is a melting pot of individuals,
I didn't see a single person I saw myself in.
And I learned very quickly that that was my people.
I could go into building after building, room after room,
and I may not see somebody that looks like me.
Coming out of that, I think for me,
the biggest thing I realized
was I can waste a lifetime being angry,
or I can choose to forgive and I can live a lifetime.
Okay, I know.
I got home from the hospital after about five weeks.
So, I went to join my sister for breakfast,
and she was reading her local paper,
The Star Trib in the Twin Cities,
and in the paper there was an article
about the Paralympic trials
for the 2018 Beijing Games for swimming.
In that moment was the very first time
we heard of the Paralympic movement,
decided that maybe we should go check it out that night.
I was incredibly anxious about going back down
the memory lane of last time I was there,
and last time I had been there
I was walking and my life looked vastly different.
So, I always joke that families that love you,
they also push you, and they push you a lot,
and that day my family pushed, and they pushed hard.
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And when we got to the University of Minnesota that night,
I remember we got in the first set of doors,
and that rush of chlorine that hits when you get to a pool
and that smell, it hit us that night,
and it was in that moment that I started to feel calm.
I looked over to my sister and I said,
how cool would it be if in four years I could be here?
And that's always been kind of marked
as the day that that dream started to be born.
Getting into the water and now having a different body
and dealing with learning how to balance my body
from a buoyancy standpoint in the water,
but then also propel myself without that kick
that I relied on for so long.
It was different.
It was challenging, it was at times incredibly frustrating,
but at the same time, it was also kind of liberating.
I slowly found my way to move forward.
I found my way to start forgiving.
I found my way to stop asking why me,
and looking instead at what the possibilities
could be in the future.
And so, for me, a lot of that healing
took place in the water.
Relearning how to swim taught me how to relearn how to live.
Hi, how are you?
I think representation's such a huge part
of how we find our path forward.
It's really, really hard to become what you can't see.
Disability is often not talked about.
It's not something we bring up
when we're talking about diversity inclusion.
It's not something you see in our mainstream media,
and when you tie the women
and individuals with disability conversation together,
I think it just elevates that importance.
- Three months after Mallory was paralyzed at 18,
she was back in the water.
Four years later, she had set 15 world records,
33 American records, incredible achievements.
She has become an active disability advocate
and public speaker.
So, I would like to ask you to join me
in welcoming her to the stage.
(audience applauding)
- For women, having role models, having mentors
who they can look up to is incredibly important.
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After returning to the pool in April of 2008,
I became addicted to swimming.
Everything was centered around it.
14 months after my paralysis, I made our US National Team
for the first time, and I went on in August of 2009,
just a year and a half after my paralysis,
to break my first three world records.
From there, my career, in all honesty,
took a life of its own.
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I was out in New York for some media,
and the hotel room that I was staying in,
the accessible shower bench in the hotel room
came unscrewed from the wall halfway through my shower,
and I came down on my left arm
and suffered permanent nerve damage to it.
My arm injury has been tenfold
to what my paralysis ever was for me,
mentally and emotionally.
I contemplated retiring.
I thought about hanging the suit up, calling it a day,
moving on to that next chapter,
and my boyfriend at the time, now husband,
he knew how badly I wanted Rio.
He kind of kept that dream alive when I couldn't.
So, I'm now on my way to Tokyo.
I'm ranked number one in the world in the 50 Fly
as of right now, and I don't plan on stopping
until I'm on top of the podium again.
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- Is that tight?
- I think that it's especially important
as a woman in sport who happens to be a Paralympic athlete,
because there's also the disability conversation
that's coming into play as well,
and those are two really powerful conversations
that we need to have.
I had started building my career outside
and began getting really laser focused
on my speaking career.
I began kind of immersing myself more in the advocacy world.
I still, as a speaker even,
have days where I'll go into room after room after room
and I am the only individual with a disability
that you can see visually.
We need to find a way to make sure
there's that representation,
because there's young girls and boys
all over the country and world that are growing up
that look a little bit different than your average person,
whatever that even means anymore,
and they need to see a path forward.
I would love nothing more
than to use every bit of my voice and platform
to be able to help guide that conversation
and be a part of that conversation,
because I want to make sure that in 10, 15, 20 years
the Mallory back in 2008
doesn't have to sit and go to a mall
and feel like she doesn't see anybody that looks like her.
I want our community to be diverse and inclusive
of everybody that makes it up.
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