UNI Swimming and Diving’s own Olivia Chambers captured gold in Paris in the women’s S13 400-meter freestyle with a time of 4:29:93, and silver in the S13 200-meter individual medley. Chambers has become the first UNI athlete to medal in the Paralympics and joins the ranks of only three other Panthers to win a medal, the first medal since 1952. She’s also the first and only UNI athlete to ever medal twice. 

Chambers, a Little Rock, Ark. native who is legally blind due to multiple mitochondrial gene deletion syndrome, is just one of three UNI athletes in history to achieve a gold medal. 

She is also the first American swimmer to win the S13 400-meter freestyle at the Paralympics since Rebecca Meyers set the world, Paralympic and American records at the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The lone American swimmer competing in the ten-athlete event seeded with the world’s fastest time this year and second-fastest overall in the field, Chambers opened the day with a dominating performance in the first of two preliminary heats with a time of 4:33.28 seconds, cruising past second-place finisher Edo Beltran, from Spain, by 17.83 seconds. Shokhsanamkhon Toshpulatova of Uzbekistan finished third in the heat with a time of 4:52.14. In the second prelim heat, reigning world champion Carlotta Gilli, from Italy, came in first with a time of 4:43.84, with 2020 Paralympic champion Anna Stetsenko, from Ukraine, following in second with a time of 4:48.48 and Spain’s Emma Feliu Martin in third with a time of 4:57.48.

Chambers repeated her impressive preliminary performance in the finals by shaving 2.62 seconds off her career-best time from last summer’s Para Swimming World Championships in Manchester, England, a race in which she finished second. Leading from start to finish, she held off Gilli by 1.90 seconds, who earned the silver medal, while Stetsenko won bronze with a time of 4:36.17.

Chambers placed fifth in her third event, the S13 50m freestyle final, with a time of 27.65.

On Tuesday, Sept. 3, Chambers brought home silver in the women’s SM13 200-meter medley with a time of 2:25.90. Gilli, from Italy, finished first with a time of 2:25.33, less than 60 milliseconds before Chambers. Róisín Ní Ríain, from Ireland, came in third with a time of 2:27.47. Other Americans in the SM13 200-meter medley were Grace Nuhfer, with a time of 2:32.82, and Colleen Young, with a time of 2:34.95, who placed sixth and seventh respectively.

Chambers continues to compete in the Paralympics on Sept. 4 and 5, competing in the Mixed 4×100 Freestyle Relay and the SB13 100m Breaststroke, which will both be streamed live on Peacock.