Jessica Long is one of the world’s most decorated athletes and swimmers. She’s competed at five Paralympic Games, winning 29 medals, and over 50 world championship medals. She also has an incredible personal story when it comes to her parents, biological and adopted.
Born in 1992, Long grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, but is originally from Siberia. Because of fibular hemimelia (a rare congenital condition that causes a child to be born with a short or missing fibula, the smaller, outer bone of the lower leg), her lower legs were amputated when she was 18 months old and she learned to walk with prostheses.
Because of her physical disabilities, doctors encouraged her teenage parents to give her up to a Russian orphanage because they could not care for her. Long was adopted at a little over a year old and relocated to the United States. In the London Paralympics in 2012, her biological parents watched her swim not knowing this was their long-lost daughter, according to The Siberian Times. Now, she has a touching relationship with both her biological and adoptive parents.
Meet Jessica Long’s biological and adoptive parents
Her biological mother, Natalia
Image Credit: Twitter / Jessica Long Jessica Long’s biological mother is Natalia Valtysheva, who was 16 at the time she fell pregnant. She told the Siberian Times (per the Daily Mail) in 20213 that, “my little girl was born pre-term and I was told that she would be an invalid for life and that she would be unable to walk.”
The decision to give up her baby, whom the couple named Tanya, plagued Natalia. “What a worthless thing am I? I kept thinking of her all the time… but then I learned that Tanya was adopted by an American couple.”
Her adoptive mother, Beth
Jessica Long’s adoptive mother Beth said they fell in love with the infant the moment they saw her. “Her life, it won’t be easy,” the adoption agency warned, to which Beth replied, “It might not be easy, but it’ll be amazing,” according to a commercial for Toyota pegged to the Tokyo Olympics which told Jessica Long’s story. “It took us a lot of time to sort out all the paperwork for adoption… We turned to many professionals in order to solve this problem. We really wanted to help her as much as possible,” Beth recalled.
Her adoptive father, Steve
Jessica Long’s adoptive father is Steve Long. It was his idea to adopt—he traveled to Russia to pick up Long and her brother, Joshua, from the same orphanage.
