Elizabeth Marks


Elizabeth Marks is an American Paralympic swimmer who specializes in the 100m breaststroke distance.

Career

She won a gold medal at the 2015 Military World Games and four gold medals at the 2016 Invictus Games After the ceremony she privately asked Prince Harry, who had awarded her her Gold Medals, if he could present one of her Invictus gold medals to the Doctors and Nurses of Papworth Hospital who had saved her life. She qualified for the 2016 Summer Paralympics by clocking a time of with 1:28.54 at the U.S. trials, which was only 0.01 seconds short of the world record. She won an individual gold and a relay bronze medal at the Paralympics.
Marks joined the U.S. Army in July 2008 and earned military occupational specialty 68W, Health Care Specialist. While deployed in Iraq in 2010 she suffered bilateral hip injuries that left her disabled; she has a tattoo over most of her right leg. Later in 2014, during the 2014 Invictus Games, she contracted a severe respiratory infection, which forced doctors at Papworth Hospital to place her in a medically induced coma for one month.

Recognition

In 2017, SGT Elizabeth Marks was inducted into the .