Jessica Galli Cloy
2019
In 1991, at the age of 7, Jessica was involved in a car accident that fractured her spine and left her paralyzed. After her accident, she was involved in many sports including road racing, swimming, basketball, track and field. She always considered track and road racing to be her first love. Jessica was a member of the U.S. Paralympics track and field team and yet another University of Illinois wheelchair track standout.
Known as Jessie to her friends, she had many career highlights throughout her time competing. At one time, she held the World Records in the T53 200m with a time of 28.93 seconds, in the T53 400m with a time of 54.88 seconds and in the T53 800m with a time of 1:49.82. Over the years, Jessica competed in many international competitions including 4 World Championships (1998 Birmingham, England; 2002 Lille, France; 2006 Assen, Netherlands; and 2010 Christchurch, New Zealand) and 4 Paralympic Games (2000 Sydney, Australia; 2004 Athens, Greece; 2008 Beijing, China; and 2012 London, England) where she became a 7-time Paralympic medalist to bring home a collection of Gold, Silver and Bronze.
On a national level, Jessica served as an advocate and a voice for athletes. She served on the USOPC Paralympic Advisory Committee (PAC), an advisory group to the USOPC Board of Directors. Additionally, she served as Secretary on the Executive Board of Adaptive Track and Field USA and served as Junior Committee Chair for Adaptive Sports USA.
Jessica was hands on with athletes as a volunteer track and field coach with BlazeSports America and USATF Para Certified Official. From 2008 through 2016, Jessica served on the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s (USOPC) Athletes’ Advisory Council (AAC), first as the Summer Paralympic Sports representative and second as one of the AAC’s Vice-Chairs. In these roles, Jessica was able to share ideas, concerns and other issues with fellow Paralympic and Olympic athletes in an effort to better the opportunities and the support shown for athletes around the country.
Jessica was also the U.S. Paralympic athlete of the year in 2007 and an ESPY nominee in 2008. Jessie grew up at Junior Nationals and gave back so much as a coach, advocate, committee chair, community leader, Paralympic Ambassador, mother, wife and friend.