JOHNSTON, S.C. — Ellen Geddes has competed at the Paralympic Games before, but the Paris games which begin Aug. 28, will feel like the first time in many ways.
“I went to Tokyo, but it was really strange because it was in COVID. We were in extreme lockdown. We didn’t have a lot of the game experiences,” said Geddes, a wheelchair fencer who didn’t fare as well as she’d liked to have at her first games.
Before the 2021 Tokyo games, the Aiken native broke her femur, and her recovery hampered her Paralympic performance.
The fencer has higher hopes for this time around. She’ll be competing in two individual and two team contests. Her epee and foil events are set for Sept. 4-7.
Geddes has always been athletic, competing in the equestrian sports of eventing and dressage. In 2011, she damaged her spinal cord when she broke her back in a car accident.
She received treatment and rehab at Atlanta’s Shepherd Center.
“I happened upon the fencing team,” she said. “The team captain asked me if I thought it would be fun to stab people. I didn’t know it (fencing) existed. I did horses before.”
Although she doesn’t ride any longer, horses are still a large part of her life. She’s the facility manager at Maplewood Farm in Johnston and is the breeding director for Magnolia Sport Horses.
Not long after she started training with her new sport, she was sought after.
“As soon as they knew I existed, I was encouraged to compete internationally and aimed at competing in the games. I went to my first world championships in 2013,” she said.
Geddes is the only woman in the U.S. who is ranked in the B category for the sport. According to the Paralympics website, athletes in that category “have a disability that prevents voluntary movement of the trunk.”
Learning a new sport especially at that high of a level brought a lot of challenges, and Geddes said she’s had to not only practice her fencing skills, she’s also had to work on her mental game.
“It’s a big learning curve. You have to be prepared to not be successful at first and to not give up just because you’re not successful at it,” she said.
Going into the games, she’s double zonal champion. The zone she represents includes North America, South America and Africa or basically “half the world,” according to her coach Justin Meehan.
She’s been on the world championships teams in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023 and has won two silver medals at world cup events.
She narrowly missed the 2016 Rio Paralympic team, but that only pushed her harder to make the Tokyo games and now to once again pursue the dreams of Paralympic gold in Paris. And although the pursuit of the dream has taken several years, it doesn’t bother her.
“Time passes no matter what you’re doing. It takes four years for Olympic cycle to go. That’s a long time, but four years are going to happen no matter what so you might as well do something fun,” she said.
And competing internationally has been fun. She spends about half her year traveling. With her horse competitions, she might’ve gone to Florida, but now, she’s spent so much time in Italy that the iconic Tower of Pisa has become almost a familiar sight. Italy and Kyoto, Japan are two of her favorite places to visit.
One of the most interesting places to visit was the United Arab Emirates near the cities of Sharjah and Dubai.
“There was a huge desert. Two years later, there was a city; the whole thing. It was not under construction. They were done. It was very impressive,” she said.
Among the treasures in her journeys are the friendships she’s made.
“I’ve made a lot of friends in other countries that I keep in touch with on regular basis,” she said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
