A spinal cord injury changed Emi Perry ’15’s life, but not her competitive spirit. She’s a decorated paratriathlete who competed in the Paris Paralympic Games as a member of Team USA. She spoke with Ursinus Magazine about her inspiring journey.
Emi Perry KIELINSKI PHOTOGRAPHERS
by Ed Moorhouse, Photos by Linette Messina
It just wasn’t the same.
Emi Perry ’15 was a runner. She loved how free it made her feel—the openness of a natural trail, the rhythmic thud of her feet on pavement creating a symphony symbolic of strength, stamina, and perseverance.
But having to adjust to a race wheelchair?
“It wasn’t freeing at all,” Perry said. “It felt slow. I was faster when I ran, and I felt like I needed to be even faster in my chair.”
Try slowing her down now.
In September, Perry competed at perhaps the highest level for para-athletes: the 2024 Paralympics in Paris, France. Where she was once frustrated, she is now thriving. When she once cast doubt, she is now finding—and providing—inspiration.
A track athlete while a student at Ursinus College, Perry lived for the liberation that came with running. But after a spinal cord injury in 2017, she questioned whether she could experience that feeling again. Just two years after graduating from college, she was hosting some friends at her Philadelphia apartment when she fell from a fire escape ladder. She fractured her T12 vertebra, located near the base of her spine.
“When you have a spinal cord injury like that, everything below the injury is affected,” Perry said. “The T12 is located below the belly button, so my right leg doesn’t really move at all, and I have limited movement in my left leg.”
She went to Jefferson Moss-Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Center City, Philadelphia, to begin the arduous process of regaining some feeling and movement in her legs.
“All I could think about was walking again. That was my main goal for a long time,” Perry said.
But while rehabbing, she was introduced to adaptive sports and, specifically, wheelchair racing, something that—although she didn’t know it at the time—would change her life.
“I told [the rehab team] I was a runner and they suggested I try it,” Perry said. “They actually had a race wheelchair that was just sitting in a garage, and it fit me pretty well, so they said, ‘Just take this one.’”
It would be easy to assume that Perry dusted off the race wheelchair and immediately fell in love with the sport. But rather than finding a new competitive outlet, she felt restricted, inconvenienced, and confined—a fish in a vast ocean being relocated to a small tank.
“I would have to drive somewhere in Center City just to find a place I could bring my race chair. Afterwards, I needed someone to help me get in and out of the race chair. It was frustrating,” she said.
If she were to adjust, Perry would have to change her mindset.
“I had to stop comparing it to running,” she said.
A Need for Speed
According to World Triathlon, the international governing body of the sport of triathlon, there are currently nine sport classes for athletes with an impairment competing over three sprint paratriathlon distances: 750-meter swim, 20-kilometer bike (hand bike/tandem), and 5-kilometer run (racing wheelchair). Those distances are the same at all World Triathlon-sanctioned paratriathlon events.
The paratriathlon was first held as a Paralympic event at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, so last summer was just the third time it was featured on the Paralympic stage. Over that time, it has continued to grow.
In the sport’s 2016 debut at the games, 60 athletes from 18 countries contested six medal events. In Tokyo, Japan, in 2021, 80 athletes from 19 countries competed in eight medal events. In Paris, 121 athletes competed in 11 medal events, representing the largest paratriathlon cohort at the games.
Perry earned her spot on the 2024 U.S. paratriathlon team in July, but five years ago, she was still trying to find her way into the sport. In 2019, she met another disabled athlete at Philadelphia’s Broad Street Run who recognized she could be really good at wheelchair racing.
“I trained with him for a little while. [Wheelchair racing] is very technique-oriented and without a mentor, it’s really hard to figure out how to push the race chair,” Perry said.
She also became inspired by watching decorated Australian paratriathlete Lauren Parker compete in the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics. Parker, a triathlete before her spinal cord injury, was injured just two months before Perry.
“I thought, ‘OK, this is possible.’ Seeing her compete was the turning point,” Perry said.
When I was first injured, I didn't want to be in a wheelchair anymore. But being … part of this community has made me realize that I don't have to walk to be happy and enjoy my life.”
Emi Perry ’15
When I was first injured, I didn’t want to be in a wheelchair anymore. But being … part of this
community has made me realize that I don’t have to walk to be happy and enjoy my life.”
—
She moved into an apartment closer to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which provided easier access to trails she could take her race chair, and she became less dependent on others to take her places and help her in and out of the chair.
“And then during COVID, I just trained,” she said.
She got stronger. She got better at racing. And she started competing in marathons and triathlons in Philadelphia, Cape Cod, Chicago, and Miami, becoming the 2022 U.S. Paratriathlon National Champion at an event in Long Beach, Calif.
She’s earned six podiums and two wins in World Triathlon events and has been a member of the U.S. Paratriathlon Resident Team in Colorado Springs, Colo., since March 2023. Pretty impressive over a short period of time for an athlete who initially doubted she could do it.
“Well, I would say yes and no,” Perry humbly said. “Some are small fields.”
Perry earned six podiums and two wins in World Triathlon events and finished fifth in Paris.
Perry said she trains 16-18 hours a week, which includes swimming, and she bikes no less than five days a week. The frequency and intensity are pretty typical even when not preparing for Paris. In Colorado Springs, she turned her attention toward earning a spot on the Paralympic games team. And although this was her first time, many of her teammates were past Paralympians.
“I did track in college but was never good enough to reach an Olympic level,” Perry said. “Even when I started doing this, I never thought I’d be good enough to compete with people who have been injured longer, or who were born [with a disability] and have been training for much longer. I always wanted to be able to train full time and compete, so it’s nice to be able to do that now. In a way, it was a goal that I had even when I was able bodied.”
She has clearly earned her place.
“There’s a sense of, ‘It’s supposed to be this way,’ so, it wasn’t really a surprise [to make it to Paris],” she said. “But maybe a couple days later, I was really thinking back to seven years ago when I was injured and all the things that happened to get me here. And that’s kind of cool.”
The World Stage
On Monday, September 2, Perry competed in the women’s PTWC (Paralympic triathlon wheelchair) in Paris in a field of competitors that included her U.S. teammate and defending PTWC Paralympic champion Kendall Gretsch, and Australian Lauren Parker.
Parker, who won three world championship titles since Tokyo, bested the field, and won gold in 1:06:23. Gretsch took silver, and Perry finished fifth in 1:14:03. In total, the U.S. Paralympic triathlon team won eight medals in Paris.
In an interview for another publication, Perry said that while her spinal cord injury took from her, it also gave her so much. But it goes far beyond accolades.
“When I was first injured, I didn’t want to be in a wheelchair anymore,” she told Ursinus Magazine. “But being here [in Colorado Springs] and being part of this community has made me realize that I don’t have to walk to be happy and enjoy my life. I can be in a wheelchair and still be happy and have adventures.”
Perry will continue to compete, but she hesitates to set goals and measure her successes in personal-best times and the number of podiums she earns. It’s much more than that.
“I want to grow the sport,” she said. “Sports give so much to people and maybe I can be a bridge for people like me who are unsure how to start. I want to be able to do what Lauren Parker did for me. Being on the big stage like that, maybe someone who has an injury is watching me and thinking, ‘If she can do it, I can, too.’”
“Maybe they’ll be inspired to take a step that’s a little scary or intimidating,” she said. “Because life isn’t about being able bodied. It’s about your mindset.”
