Sydney Satchell of Windsor won a gold medal at the Paralympics in sitting volleyball on Saturday in Paris.
Satchell, whose lower left leg was amputated after she was injured in a car accident in 2015, was a member of the team that defeated China 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 25-20, 25-22) in the gold medal game.
It was the third straight Paralympic gold medal for the U.S. sitting volleyball team. China handed the U.S. its only loss, in the first match of pool play, 3-1.
Other medal winners from the state were Ali Truwit of Darien, a Yale swimmer who lost her lower leg after she was attacked by a shark on vacation last year in Turks and Caicos, and Matthew Torres of Ansonia.
Satchell, who grew up in Windsor and was a three-sport athlete at Ethel Walker, played lacrosse at Howard University. After graduating, she was involved in a car accident and had to make the decision to amputate her lower leg at age 22.
She began playing sitting volleyball in 2016 when she moved to Oklahoma to train with the U.S developmental team. She made the U.S. Paralympic team for the first time this year.
The game is played by six players to a side on a smaller court (10 meters by six meters) than standing volleyball, with a shorter net (about three feet high). When players hit the ball, they must remain in contact with the court and standing, rising or taking steps is not allowed.
Truwit won two silver medals – one in the 400 freestyle Thursday and one in the 100 backstroke Sunday in the S10 category, setting American records in both events. She finished the 400 in 4:31.39 behind Canada’s Aurelie Rivard (4:29.2) and the 100 back in 1:08.59 behind Bianca Pap of Hungary (1:07.57).
Torres won a bronze medal for the U.S. in the 4×100 mixed relay, which finished third behind Italy and Australia in 4:04.70.
Torres, a 2023 graduate of Fairfield University, was a bronze medalist in the 400 free at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021. Torres, who competes in the S8 division, which includes swimmers who are amputees, had amniotic band syndrome, in which bands of tissue wrap around the fetus in the uterus. He is missing the lower part of his right leg as well as part of his fingers on both hands and he has partial hearing loss.
