MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Christie Raleigh Crossley was watching a documentary recently in which basketball star Sue Bird mentioned how every time she was selected to Team USA for the Olympics, she felt like a kid again.
When the scene was over, Raleigh Crossley paused her TV and cried. She thought about the injuries, the surgeries and the impairments that rendered impossible her childhood Olympic dream. Later, though, came a sense of peace. “I wasn’t sitting there going, ‘I’m never going to be an Olympian,’” she said.
This week in the Freeman Aquatics Center at the University of Minnesota, Raleigh Crossley has instead set her sights on reaching the biggest stage in adaptive athletics with victories at the U.S. Paralympic swim trials. A trip to Paris for the 2024 Paralympics could finally fulfill her ambition…