Paris swimmer Gia pergolini wins USA's first gold in Paris the Paris swimming ready room ahead of Friday night's 100 meter backstroke s13 was tense then there were American swimmers Gia pergolini and Grace ner pergolini and newer spent their pre-race time singing and dancing keeping the energy high and trying to loosen the tension in the air I feel like the girls in the ready room hate us pergolini joked after her race the light-hearted pre-race singing and dancing work out for pergolini who earned the first American Gold Medal of the 2024 par Olympics with a time of 1 t0 4.93 just short of her world record of 104.64 the Atlanta Georgia native brought home her second straight gold medal after setting her world record in Tokyo I'm just so happy to be here and representing one of the greatest countries in the world and getting its first gold medal par Olympics pergolini said it's just unreal especially after watching the Olympians dominate the Olympics I wanted to do that here and I'm so glad I got to do that and end up achieving my goal noer followed up her silver medal 100 fly s13 performance from Thursday with an eighth place finish newer has referred to the 100 backstroke as her fun event clocking in at 13.35 fent she has three more events beginning on September 2nd never going to take for granted a chance to swim in a paralympic final newer said that was a fun race Gia and I always have a blast back in the ready room just dancing around so definitely a good day after the 100 fly just wrapping up a good first half of my events [Music]