"I am back in Paris to cheer on my friend Ali Truwit" - Kate Douglass supports friend who won medals 16 months after losing her leg to shark attack

Alexandra 'Ali' Truwit won two silver medals on her Paralympic debut. After her win, she received a sweet surprise when her friend and Olympic champion, Kate Douglass, came to Paris to cheer her on and congratulate her on her achievement.

In an Instagram video posted by the women's clothing brand @togethxr, Kate Douglass said,

"Hi, I'm Kate Douglass, Olympic gold medalist, and I'm back in Paris to cheer on my friend Ali at the Paralympic swimming Games."

The video then showed excerpts from an interview where the American swimmer was narrating her ordeal about surviving the shark attack that took part of her leg and her thoughts on her recovery. The post also contained snippets of Douglass cheering on Truwit at the Paralympics.

In May 2023, Truwit had just graduated from Yale University and was on vacation in the Turks and Caicos, when she was attacked by a shark while in the sea.

While Truwit managed to survive the attack, her leg had to be amputated below the knee. However, Truwit was not done with the pool and took part in the 2024 Paris Paralympics, winning two silver medals.

Douglass had an outstanding performance at the Paris Olympics 2024, winning two gold and two silver medals. She was one of the few American female swimmers, apart from Katie Ledecky, who managed to win more than one gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

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Kate Douglass' performance at the Paris Olympics

Kate Douglass in action at the women's 200m individual medley finals at the Paris Olympics 2024 [Image Source: Getty]

Although the USA won more medals than any other nation in swimming at the 2024, Paris Olympics, for the first time since the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the swimming contingent returned home with less than 10 Olympic gold medals, including both men and women.

The men's team won just two gold medals compared to their eight at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. Bobby Finke was the only American male to win an individual Olympic gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

However, the female swimmers saved the day for the USA, with Kate Douglass and Katie Ledecky being the standout performers. Before the Paris Olympics, Douglass had won just one Olympic medal, a bronze medal in the 200m individual medley.

By the 2024 Paris Olympics, however, Douglass had transformed into a champion swimmer. She won fourteen medals at different editions of the World Championships of Swimming, including two gold medals in the 200m medley and the 4x100m mixed medley relay event at the 2024 Doha World Championships.

At the Olympic Games in Paris, Douglass won two gold medals, in the women's 200m breaststroke and in the 4x100m medley relay. She upgraded her bronze medal from the Tokyo Olympics in the 200m individual medley to silver in Paris, and won silver as part of the women's 4x100m freestyle relay too.