SACRAMENTO — A Northern California athlete is heading to the Paris Paralympics, but her incredible story began right here in Sacramento.
It's clear that Bethany Zummo is in great shape, but how she got there is a whole other story. It all started because she was born with proximal femoral segmental deficiency and fibular hemimelia, meaning she was born without a fibula.
“When I was born they said, 'Take your baby home, love your baby and watch her grow up,' and by the time I was 2, I had to have an amputation,” Zumo said.
She never let that slow her down.
“I wanted to try every sport,” she said. “I wanted to be active. I wanted to play, and everyone around me wanted me to play.”
She attended Shriners Children's Northern California in Sacramento, where she learned not only prosthetic limbs but also a lot of perseverance.
“My mom would get mad at me because I would be too active and break my prosthetic leg, and my doctors… she remembers them saying, 'No, your leg can be fixed. We want you to play until it breaks. We'll fix it. We'll make it better, but we want you to keep playing,'” Zummo said.
Zummo first fell in love with sitting volleyball in high school, and was so good at it that she was selected to play for the U.S. national team as a senior.
“It's amazing,” she said. “When I was growing up, I never thought that would be in my future.”
Zumo has been with the team for 14 years and it has given her a lot more than just volleyball, including marrying a Brazilian volleyball player. The two of them sometimes exchange a little insults.
“I have two gold medals and he doesn't have any,” Zummo said with a laugh.
Her next goal is the Paris Paralympics, and her motivation is her family, her country and all the children like her.
“I get to meet a lot of kids like little Bethany and it's so exciting to see them trying out these sports at this point,” Zummo said.
The sitting volleyball competition at Paris 2024 will take place from 29 August to 7 September.
