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All About Jessica Long, the U.S. Paralympic Swimmer Competing in her Sixth Games
Having won 29 medals over her first five Paralympics, the double amputee swimmer who was adopted from Siberia gears up for the 2024 Paris Games.
Having overcome so much in her early life on dry land, double amputee Jessica Long found her solace in the pool. And as she kept swimming, she found so much more.
The 32-year-old Team USA swimmer is now heading into the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games as one of the most dominant Paralympians of all time. Since making a dazzling debut at the age of 12 at the 2004 Athens Games, Long has notched 29 Paralympic medals, 16 of which are gold.
“I actually kind of got into swimming by accident,” Long said in an official video promoting the 2014 Paris Paralympic Games. “For me it was a place where I didn’t have to wear my heavy prosthetic legs, and I could leave them on the pool deck, jump in the water and just be like a normal kid.”
There is nothing ordinary, however, about what Long has managed to accomplish as an athlete.
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Jessica Long's Story
Born in Siberia on February 29, 1992, as Tatiana Olegovna Kirillova, the future swimming champion was put up for adoption by her teenaged mother. Her odds of finding a loving home were complicated by fibular hemimelia, a congenital birth defect in which she was born with underdeveloped fibula bones in both her legs, according to Team USA.
That, however, didn’t deter Beth and Steve Long of Baltimore, Maryland, from adopting the girl they would name Jessica at 13 months of age – even after they learned of her condition.
"We had seen a picture of Jessica ahead of time, and so when they called, we just knew she was the one for us," Long’s adoptive mother told TODAY's Jenna Bush Hager in 2021. "Like, it didn't matter what the disability was, what the problems were. We were just ready, and we just knew she was meant for us."
At 18 months old, Jessica Long underwent amputations on both her legs, the first of 25 surgeries she would undergo through her early twenties as the deformed bones kept growing.
How did Jessica Long become a swimmer?
Growing up in Baltimore, Long says her physical impairment left her feeling different from other children, even her five siblings. She tried multiple sports including gymnastics, before discovering the pool as a ten-year-old. She took to it like a fish to water.
When she got involved with the Paralympic movement, Long truly found her calling.
“I saw people without their arms and their legs and it just didn’t seem like I was any different, and I think for me as a little girl that changed everything,” Long told NBC News in 2019.
How old was Jessica Long when she won her first Paralympic medal?
Long was just 12 years old when she made her Paralympic debut at the Athens 2004 Games — and made a statement in the process. The precocious tween won three gold medals in her first attempt on the biggest of international stages.
Over the next four Paralympics — Beijing (2008), London (2012), Rio (2016) and Tokyo (2021) — Long continued to dominate and add to her medal total. Long enters the Paris Games as the second winningest Paralympic swimmer of all time behind the visually impaired Trischa Zorn-Hudson, who medaled 55 times.
“I’ve always believed that when you get to Games, it comes down to being mentally tough,” Long told former Olympians Katie Hoff and Missy Franklin on their podcast earlier this year. “When there are moments of doubt…you just go back to, it’s just swimming, you know how to do it.”
In 2007, Long also became the first Paralympic athlete to win the Sullivan Award, given to the best amateur athlete in the United States.
In addition to her Paralympic Games medal haul, she has 54 world championships to her name.
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Jessica Long’s life outside of the pool
Even as she dominated her sport, Long has been vocal about her mental health struggles, fueled by feelings of rejection as an adoptee and her physical pain while using her prosthetic legs. She divulged that she battled an eating disorder around the time of the 2016 Rio Games.
Long told Hoff and Franklin that she hopes to inspire others with her journey inside and outside the pool.
In December 2013, while in Russia doing prep work for the 2014 Soichi Winter Paralympic Games as a commentator for NBC, Long received some closure. She traveling to the Siberian village of Tem to meet her biological parents and visit the orphanage from which she started her improbable journey.
Her life story became the focus of a moving Toyota television commercial ahead of the Tokyo Summer Olympics that aired nationally during the 2021 Super Bowl, introducing her to millions of Americans.
“I have an amazing family, and my parents did everything right,” Long said in a statement at the time of the ad’s release. “But how could I not feel like a burden?
“There was still a lot of hurt there: Why was I adopted? Why me? Why didn’t I have legs? There’s still a lot of heartache, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve really tried to reframe that ‘why me’ into ‘why not me?’” her statement continued.
Jessica Long is married to Lucas Winter
Long met her future husband, youth soccer coach Lucas Winter through mutual church friends in 2015. The couple married in February 2020, according to Team USA.
Because Long trained at the Olympic training center in Colorado and her spouse works in Washington, D.C., they have spent long months apart.
“I got married, and I was literally like OK I’ll see you in a year,” said Long said on the podcast. “I couldn’t see my husband for like five months during COVID, just with all the rules at the training center.”
The couple shares a dog, a golden doodle named Goose, who has become a star in his own right thanks to a pet food campaign that tapped Long as a spokesperson.
What’s next for Jessica Long?
In 2020, Long released her memoir, Unsinkable, and followed that up with a children’s book titled, The Mermaid with No Tail, that she co-wrote with her father. Her third book, Beyond the Surface: A Gold Medalist’s Guide to Finding and Loving Yourself, is due out in October.
Long has said she envisions retiring from competitive swimming after representing her country one more time at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Afterwards, Long says she hopes to do more sports commentating and plans to keep writing and doing speaking engagements, with the hope of inspiring others to persevere over the hardships they face in their own lives.
“I love public speaking and really being a role model to the next generation, I think it’s super important, “ Long told SwimPro.
