Paralympian Ali Truwit Wants You To Know We’re Stronger Than We Think

The Paris 2024 Paralympic medalist is turning her extraordinary comeback into a movement. Through her Stronger Than You Think foundation and a $500,000 performance incentive fund for U.S. Para swimmers, Ali Truwit is helping build the next generation of Team USA athletes on the road to LA28.

(This is part two of a two-part story based on a Forbes exclusive interview with Ali Truwit on August 27, 2026. All quotes are taken directly from a transcript of the interview.)

At a young age Ali Truwit has learned something about strength that few people learn without first being tested by circumstances they never imagined: We are stronger than we think.

Tested By Fire

It is not simply the name of her nonprofit. It is the philosophy that emerged from the most difficult three years of her life—and now the mission she is using to help other people discover what may be possible for them.

In May 2023, shortly after graduating from Yale, Truwit was snorkeling in Turks and Caicos with her former Yale swimming teammate Sophie Pilkinton when a shark attacked. Truwit lost her foot and part of her leg. The journey that followed included physical rehabilitation, grief and the daunting question of whether she could ever return to the sport that had defined so much of her life.

She did.

Less than a year after the attack, Truwit qualified for the U.S. Paralympic team. At Paris 2024, she won silver medals in the 100-meter backstroke and 400-meter freestyle. But the medals were only part of the comeback. The larger story was what Truwit discovered along the way—and what she decided to do with that discovery.

“A Massive Game Changer”

When I spoke with Truwit on August 27, 2026, she was in Southern California preparing for three races: the 100-meter freestyle, 400 freestyle and 100 backstroke. She was still thinking like an elite athlete. But she was also thinking about the people who had helped her get there.

“The support we have around us is a massive, massive game changer in the way that we face life’s hardships,” Truwit told me.

Her own success, she said, is “without a doubt a reflection of the people I had around me.” That included family, friends, teammates and coaches. Her former swim coach even came out of retirement to spend a year training her for the Paralympics while simultaneously helping her navigate grief. Her Paralympic teammates welcomed her into a community she previously hadn’t known. And strangers reached out with unexpected gestures of encouragement. One woman she had never met mailed Truwit crocheted hearts before the Paralympic Trials. Those gestures mattered.

“Whatever we have to give someone whenever we have to give it matters and moves them forward,” Truwit said.

Turning Something Bad Into Something Good

That became the genesis of Stronger Than You Think. Entering the Paralympic and amputee communities exposed Truwit to barriers she hadn’t previously understood.

“I wanted to make a change in those communities to the extent that I could,” she said.

And there was another reason.

“Being able to just kind of take this senseless bad thing and use it for good in that way, that was such a healing thing for me.”

Then she explained why she chose the name.

“I named it after probably my biggest learning of the past three years,” Truwit said, “which is that we’re stronger than we think, that we all have so much more within us than we might believe we do.”

Three Pillars, One Mission

Stronger Than You Think has three pillars that Truwit describes as the things that “saved my life and helped me rebuild it.” The first is water safety, including swim lessons for children in underserved communities. The second is the Paralympic movement. The third is funding prosthetics for women and girls.

The results are already tangible.

In less than two years, Truwit said, the organization has provided more than 30 prosthetics for women and girls and thousands of hours of swim lessons for children in underserved communities. For Truwit, the prosthetic mission is particularly personal.

“I know firsthand what it’s like to have access to a prosthetic leg and get my mobility back,” she said. That access allowed her to walk, appear on stages and ultimately compete at the Paralympic Games.

A $500,000 Bet On U.S. Paralympic Swimming

Now Truwit is putting substantial financial resources behind another piece of her mission. Stronger Than You Think has given a $500,000 grant to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Foundation to establish the first performance incentive fund for U.S. Paralympic swimming. The fund provides financial rewards to swimmers who reach the podium at select major international competitions leading toward LA28. Athletes who set a world record receive $10,000.

The idea is not simply to celebrate medals. It is to recognize the financial reality of elite sport.

Truwit pointed to a statistic that particularly struck her: more than half of Team USA athletes make less than $50,000 a year, with some working outside jobs to afford being professional athletes. For Paralympic athletes, the financial challenges can be even greater. Truwit noted that prosthetic legs can cost from $10,000 to more than $100,000, while insurance often doesn’t cover enough of what is needed. So the $500,000 fund isn’t simply a donation.

It is an investment in opportunity.

“I’m really hopeful that this fund makes a dent in that,” Truwit said, while expressing hope that future fundraising can expand the prize pool and eventually reach other sports.

And she is excited to see athletes receive those rewards.

“We have some big checks printed out that they’re going to get to hold up on the podium,” she said. “So that’ll be really fun.”

Becoming A Public Speaker

“I donate my speaking fees to Stronger Than You Think,” she said, explaining that her own speaking career began when Forbes invited her to speak at the Forbes Power Women Summit.

That opportunity helped launch a career that is now helping provide mobility through prosthetics, swimming lessons for underserved children and support for Paralympic athletes.

“It’s amazing to just kind of watch it go down the line and realize how far people’s support can go,” Truwit said.

Service Is Healing

Truwit’s ability to turn adversity into something constructive extends beyond her nonprofit. During recovery, she started a baking company called Truwit’s Treats. Baking gave her an escape from the daily doctor appointments and the “heavy and hard information” she was confronting as a 22-year-old amputee. She began giving baked goods to the people helping her recover—lifeguards, prosthetists, physical therapists and doctors.

“It was a really creative outlet and a just honestly great escape from some hard stuff to find some joy,” she said.

Her parents had taught her and her three brothers to “seek joy and realize that it’s all around us if we look for it.” Even in the depths of pain, she said, baking gave her a way to “spark some joy in my day.” It is another version of the same lesson.

Cling To Hope

Near the end of our conversation, Truwit offered the advice that may best summarize her journey.

“Cling to hope,” she said. She encouraged people to believe they are stronger than they think. “Our minds tell us we’re done and we’re out for the count and we’re not,” she said. Then she put the idea into even clearer terms:

“We have more within us to overcome what we’re facing than we might think we do.”

And if people can open themselves to that possibility, she said, “we will continue to show ourselves just how strong we are.” That isn’t motivational language from someone standing safely outside adversity. It comes from someone who has lived it.

The Road To LA28

Now Truwit is looking forward. The 2027 World Championships will be a major milestone. Then comes more training followed by more racing, etc.

“We’re under two years out now,” she said. “Time to put my head down and train hard.”

That is the athlete talking. But she is also an advocate preparing for LA28. Truwit wants to compete in Los Angeles, but she is simultaneously helping make it possible for other American Paralympic swimmers to arrive there better supported. That creates a remarkable full circle. The woman who needed other people to believe in her is now investing in other athletes.

The woman who once needed a prosthetic to discover what she could still do is now helping others gain mobility.

A Legacy Bigger Than A Medal

There will be a scoreboard in Los Angeles. Truwit wants to be on it. But there will be another scoreboard that won’t appear in any Olympic results book. How many athletes received support? How many children learned to swim? How many women and girls received prosthetics? How many aspiring Paralympians were able to keep pursuing their dreams?

How many more people will hear Truwit’s story and decided their own story wasn’t over?

Those may ultimately be the most important numbers. Because Ali Truwit’s journey has evolved from survival to competition to service. Along the way she discovered that she possessed reserves of strength she had not yet discovered.

She discovered that she was stronger than she thought.

“If we open our minds to the possibility,” Truwit said, “we surprise ourselves.”