“I was so happy because I had accomplished my goal. I was also happy because I got to come home with a medal and not everyone got one,” said Meyers. “The USA team did not get as many as Russia did, and I was proud to contribute one medal to the [U.S. total].”

Meyers has been profoundly deaf since birth due to Usher’s Syndrome, which causes both hearing and vision loss. She hears now, thanks to a cochlear implant which she received when she was 18 months old. She reads lips and with the help of technology called an FM System which teachers wear in her classes, she can hear lectures. Still, she must look directly at a person when he or she is speaking to her, and ambient noises can interfere with her hearing.

Yet for Meyers, the fact that she is profoundly deaf has not stopped this energetic, buoyant teenager, who loves to read, travel and “hang out” with friends in addition to swimming. “Everything excites her, and she embraces it,” says her mother Maria Dachille Meyers ’81. “I don’t know where her spirit comes from.”

Meyers figuratively and literally dove into swimming when her mother “threw her” into the pool at age six. She won first place in her first race, and since then, she has been swimming competitively. These days, she trains six days a week for at least 90 minutes a day at the Loyola-Blakefield Aquatics Swim Club. As one of five female swimmers at the Deaflympics, she swam in six events.

In addition to the competition, Meyers and her teammates received the proverbial royal treatment from their host country. She toured the country, traveling to the beach, shopping in the city and participating in the traditional Moon Festival which is held annually to herald autumn. She experienced a bustling city where most people drive scooters and eat their food boiled. The cultural divide narrowed at the games, however, when all the countries and athletes were honored in a fireworks-blazing Opening Ceremony reminiscent of the spectacular Beijing Olympics.