Rudy Garcia-Tolson
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| Full name | Rudy Garcia-Tolson | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | American | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
September 14, 1988 Riverside, California, U.S. |
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Medal record
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Rudy Garcia-Tolson (born September 14, 1988) is a Paralympic swimmer, runner and triathlete from the USA.
He was born with popliteal pterygium syndrome, resulting in a club foot, webbed fingers on both hands, a cleft lip and palate and the inability to straighten his legs. As a 5 year old wheelchair user, after 15 operations, he decided he would rather be a double amputee and walk with prosthetics. He had both legs removed above the knee.
Garcia-Tolson started swimming at age 6.
When he was eight years old, he stated that he would swim in the 2004 Paralympic Games. He was true to his word and won the gold medal in the 200 meter individual medley and broke the world record for his SM7 class.
In 2008 Beijing Paralympics, when he was 20, he again won the gold medal in the 200 meter Individual Medley event, breaking his own SM7 world record twice in the process. He also won bronze medal in 100m breaststroke SB7.
At the 2012 Paralympics in London, he broke the SM7 world record in 200 meter Individual Medley heat. In the final, both he and Yevheniy Bohodayko swam faster still. Bohodayko touched the wall first; Garcia-Tolson won silver.
Garcia-Tolson started running at age 7. By the age of 13, he held T42 American Records in all distances from 400 metres to the half marathon.
At the 2011 Parapan American Games, he won a silver medal in the T42 100 metre event. At the 2012 Summer Paralympics, he competed on the track as well as in the pool. He ran personal best times in his T42 100 metre and 200 metre events, but did not qualify for finals.
Garcia-Tolson competed in first his triathlon at age 8, as the swimmer in a winning relay team. He raced with celebrities including Robin Williams as part of Team Braveheart.
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Wikipedia