After securing a third consecutive gold medal for Team USA in sitting volleyball and a fifth-place finish in the women’s C1-3 race, CSUN alumni, Katie Holloway Bridge and Jamie Whitmore represented Northridge proudly in the 2024 Paralympic Games.

Bridge, who helped lead the sitting volleyball team to two gold medals in the two previous Paralympic Games in 2016 and 2020, once again accomplished bringing all the glory back to the states by winning gold.

Bridge, now a five-time Paralympian, won silver in the 2008 and 2012 Games and would recall the feeling when entering the Paralympic stage for the first time.

“Favorite Paralympic memory was the first time walking out of the tunnel in the Bird’s Nest in Beijing to 90,000 in the crowd and chanting U-S-A,” Bridge said. “My first games was a whirlwind. It was just a whole new experience, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”

While competing at CSUN for the women’s basketball team, Bridge was the first female with a prosthetic limb to participate in the history of NCAA Division I Basketball. Bridge, who was born with fibular hemimelia in her right leg, had her affected part of the leg amputated at just 20 months old.

Being the first ever woman with a prosthetic limb to compete came with a lot of difficulty, Bridge would call the environment as “challenging,” but stated she hoped her story would mean something special.

“It was very challenging, one of the hardest things I ever had to do. But I knew if I just finished my four years, it would mean something special to the little girls behind me,” Bridge said. “I loved being an athlete with a disability. That was the best feeling since growing up, I felt like I had to hide who I was as an athlete with a disability. Being on this team [Team USA] meant I could be a whole person and love myself.”

In the Gold Medal Game Bridge helped the USA team defeat The People’s Republic of China, officially securing a third straight gold medal for the nation.

Also joined by Bridge in Paris was Jaime Whitmore, a CSUN track and field alumni. Whitmore, who placed fifth in the C1-3 road race, was just 22 seconds off the pace from a podium and medaling.

Whitmore, who is a three-time Paralympian, participated in her third Paralympics after competing in the 2020 and 2016 games. The two-time medalist went into the 2024 games hoping to add to her medal count after winning two in the 2016 Rio Games where she won silver in the 3,000-meter track event and gold in the main road race.

While at CSUN, Whitmore competed in cross country and track, and after graduating in 1998, she would go on to become a professional triathlete. In 2008, Whitmore discovered that the pain in her leg was cancerous, leading to a diagnosis of a spindle cell sarcoma that had wrapped around her sciatic nerve.

Over the next year, Whitmore would be in and out of the hospital fighting for her life after undergoing numerous surgeries and chemotherapy. Just less than a year after beating cancer and relearning how to walk, she would birth twin boys and go on to compete for Team USA in the 2016 games.

“I didn’t want cancer to define me or dictate me,” she said. “I was never going to be able to return to being an able-body professional because of my disability, so for me, it was not about not letting cancer win.”

After long hours of training to compete at the highest level and overcoming a life-threatening illness, Whitmore would say she wouldn’t be where she is without the support of her father, who did so much for her in her life.

“My dad was the one who lived at the hospital to help me because I couldn’t get out of the bed even on my own,” Whitmore said. “He was the one who would walk alongside me to help me get moving, and even when I came home, he would help me even when I couldn’t stand on my own.”

After overcoming an illness and juggling being a new mom taking care of two newborn children, Whitmore would say the biggest challenge to overcome is finding balance in her life.

“When you’re a mom, I feel like you can never check out,” she said. “The way that I can balance it is when I’m with my kids I am present with them and then when they are in school that’s when I’m in my recovery mode and getting all of that dialed and making sure I am recovered like while sitting at my son’s soccer practice.”

The hard work would pay off for Whitmore as she would accomplish winning gold in 2016 and would recall the emotions she felt in that moment and those who stood by her side to support her.

“It was unbelievable. It felt like being on instant Cloud 9,” she said. “You know how hard it was. I looked back when I first found out that my leg was partially paralyzed. And it was one of those times where I thought ‘I did this.’ And I didn’t do it alone. It was something that everyone who stood by my side when I was sick got to take in to enjoy.

After achieving fifth in the road race, an improvement after finishing seventh in the 2020 games. Whitmore’s hard work didn’t go unnoticed and is another example of inspiring leadership and hard work she is striving to show off to others who may be in her same shoes when she was younger.

“You have to keep going and you don’t want to settle,” Whitmore said. “It’s about paving your own way and if people shut the door, then find another door to open. Give it your best, be competitive and don’t give up.”

With the Paralympic games concluded, Bridge and Whitmore will head home, filling the nation with pride and inspiring the CSUN community.