Tokyo Paralympic WR Holder and Gold Medalist Gia Pergolini Retina Society Interview

we're going to introduce uh gia pergolini uh a senior in high school i don't know what it's like to be missing friday in high school if you really want to be here but we're appreciative gia uh and her parents alice and and bill um watch this video oh dominant in heat though really really strong it's gonna take a lot for anyone to touch her this is the s13 classification 2014 she was diagnosed with stargardt's disease of course talking about gia pergolini and the condition causes a progressive loss of central vision during childhood or adolescence swimmers hopping in here they're going to put their feet on the back stroke wedge which is hanging on the touch pad to make it less slippery will another world record fall we've seen eight so far [Music] continues to get faster and faster and i expect she'll be even faster tonight in the finals 105 5 would be what she's looking for right now she's got to contend with 100 meters of cruel swing on her back going out fast berkeley is certainly capable of winning from behind but she's wasting no time taking hold of this race she's looking so strong she had a beautiful swim in the prelims really nice turns really good touches going in for the turn here really flawless execution she's using that whole 15 meters underwater with her butterfly kicks coming up and getting right back into it beautiful turn for gia percolini of the usa currently in lane number four everyone else trying to track her down she's got seeley on her right she's got dedicated australia on her left but no one's coming near her and there's the world record line gia pergami looking so fast in tokyo she is way ahead of that line time she's going to keep it up going into the finish here i think it's going to be a world record for fernalini and purgal lady at the touch gets the world record and the gold medal [Applause] retina society members and guests please please give your warmest welcome to world record gold medalist gia pergolini and her parents alice and bill so [Applause] tell us what happened so um i was so young that i didn't really understand the full concept of me having a vision problem um i had it my whole life so i didn't know any difference uh it was not until i was much older and like kids my age starting to get driver's license and being able to do stuff that i can't that's when i struggled a bit but when i was in fourth grade i was i was pretty okay about it i mean i did get bullied in elementary school so that was probably the worst part about it but um it was i was okay maybe you can explain the bullying a little bit so we undersensitized to it i mean kids with thick glasses get bullied yeah but kids that can't like you can't see the board you know that you're getting bullied for something like that yes um so fourth graders i mean they can be brutal sometimes but um they would just i guess pick on me i didn't wear glasses that much because they didn't help but um we also know you're an excellent athlete for example gia played lacrosse before in addition to swimming what else did you play i played tennis tennis lacrosse you got to be able to see gymnastics i don't know how i did those things to be honest looking back um but it was fun i had fun but i always came back to swimming so mom and dad gia was playing all these sports excelling sounds like in pretty much everything but you knew what was coming down the road visually and so was it gia's decision to go to swimming did you encourage that how did that transition to becoming didn't have a choice yeah uh she's always been a good swimmer oh but well excuse me once she's not been a good swimmer she's a world record swimmer so that little distinction there many of us are good swimmers so yeah you know my our two boys played in college um and you know i i believe that that's all part of the education process so uh she she didn't have a choice to sit at home she was going to find something to do after school so she did want to quit at one point and i said okay what are you going to do now she's like what do you mean what am i going to do now i'm like well you're not just going to sit around you're gonna have to pick another sport and she said well swimming is the only thing i know i'm like well you know you choose and so she decided to stick with with us swimming and with tennis i didn't understand how if she can hit a tennis ball what is wrong with her nobody could tell me she's blind she can't see the board but she can see the tennis ball fast reflexes but you know if anybody knows tennis i guess she wasn't bawling when it's coming right at you she was seeing it on the side and her peripheral is fine so that's what she was doing i guess that's why she was able to hit the ball because it was constantly on the side you have to be really elite you have to have fire in your belly so gia tell us i mean we heard that you you know you maybe wanted to step away from something you're really good at but like what what makes you go i mean even this year the beginning of this year i had a hard time getting back into swimming and trying to find that fire in me to achieve this goal and then one day at practice it just it just clicks it's it's like okay it starts out you feel really good at practice and then you go to swim meets and your times get better and then you're like okay i can do this and my coach made me very mad a lot of the time so that kind of fired me up but um i love him though it's fine but um who's your coach mention him by name because he'll probably watch this video he is in kentucky now he left me which i don't know why like why would you leave me but it's okay um i've been training with him for three years now and he's been an amazing coach and he basically made me fall in love with the sport again just this year and i wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for him so having amazing support system with my family and friends my coaches and my teammates at dynamo that kind of put the fire back into me and helped me get a gold medal so yeah world record setting four times you keep breaking your own right yeah what's the you know when do you say i don't know if i could i don't know if i can do like for this meeting we kept our expectations we were trying to keep expectations as low as possible because who knew what would happen very next day with regards to code but if you're just the pressure of expectation expectation how do you handle that oh my gosh do you need to have an enemy out there that i mean the the the other swimmers on the video from where are they once australia australia you do you know them right they they so uh is that what drives you a little yes a little a lot of it yeah um the italian girl that got placed second her name is carlotta um she beat me twice at world championships when i was 13 and 15. and so she kind of pushed me to do better and she's been a really good competitor these past five years i've been swimming for para and she really pushed me [Music] i knew she was going to swim fast in tokyo she she got a gold medal the night before so i was thinking in my head i trained so hard for this moment i could have done anything else to be more prepared and so i tell people all the time i was more nervous a month prior to the games than i was that night because i felt confident going into the games and getting i got a world record in my first one that morning swim so you swim the vet twice in the morning and in the afternoon and i swam in the morning got the world record so i was confident going into finals and it's just such an amazing pool too so it was so much fun to swim in and i never had so much fun racing and so that kind of helped take off the pressure but when i saw or when i heard that i won gold um that the load of pressure that went off of me was huge so so take us back a little bit because it's probably pretty common and for your family and you sit and think boy someday i'd love to be in the paralympics right there's that you probably and how many years did you think about that before oh my gosh so i was at my old swim team called chahuchi gold and my coach andy at the time who i still keep in touch with um he mentioned paralympics and i was like what are you talking about i'm not disabled like i don't have any problems and then my mother and i did research on it and at 12 years old they made me go to augusta georgia just to see and try it out and i saw other people with disabilities i'm like wow this is so cool and empowering so we went to canada and i remember seeing all the paralympians like michelle conkley who was the girl speaking on the um on the video she she was there and i saw her i was like oh my gosh like this is so cool like i want to be one of them so ever since that moment i was i had a goal to become a paralympian and so that year i went to berlin and they classified me as an s13 visual impairment and um then i went to mexico city by december for world championships and that's where carlotta beat me for the first time so um so yeah ever since that moment from when i was 13 i was like i won't be a paralympian and i want to win gold i really want to win gold well on behalf of the retina society and all the guests that are here we would like to thank you for sharing your story make a contribution to your foundation and wish you a wonderful evening we're gonna we're gonna take you out to eat and then um i think they're joining us for the gala tomorrow night if you want you're welcome you don't have to and just thank you for sharing your story with us thank you [Applause]