Alexa Leary: According to fortune teller, Australian swimmer celebrates world record at the Paralympics

CNN
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Australia's Alexa Leary defied expectations for the second time this week, winning a Paralympic gold medal in the 100m S9 freestyle, just days after helping her team win the mixed 4x100m medley relay with 34 points.

With a time of 59.53 seconds in the S9 final of the 100-meter freestyle on Wednesday, Leary broke the world record of 59.60 seconds she had set just hours earlier in the preliminary heats.

“I just wanted to break the world record – and I did it. I did it this morning, but tonight was my show,” Leary, 23, said, according to Paralympics Australia.

Just three years ago, Leary, an aspiring triathlete, was involved in a near-fatal bicycle accident in which she was traveling at 70 kilometers per hour and suffered severe brain damage, blood clots and several broken bones.

“When I was in intensive care, my dad called a big fortune teller and paid her quite a lot to find out if I would survive nine brain surgeries and stuff,” she told CNN affiliate Nine News after her 100-meter final.

“And she said, 'Lex wants to run and speak and she wants to go to the Paralympics,' she told my dad.

“They never told me, but when I got out of the hospital I thought, 'I want to swim,' and my mom and dad said, 'Oh my God, that's exactly what the fortune teller said.'”

After spending over 100 days in hospital and learning to walk and talk again, Leary devoted herself to swimming and within two years represented Australia at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships.

The swimmer said: “It is a miracle that I am alive, walking and talking. Three years ago I was told I would never make it and now I have come this far.

She added: “My family is the reason I am here and they are up there [in the stands] look at me.”

Her mother Belinda paid tribute to her daughter and told Nine News: “She is the same girl [post-accident]but everything is heightened, even though she always just wanted to show people that everything is possible.”

“And what she has been through for the last three years is her problem with a TBI [traumatic brain injury] everything is possible,” she added.