LI's golden girl helps us see

Long Island has a lot to be proud of in Anastasia Pagonis, the 17-year-old Garden City swimmer who already has two medals in her Paralympics debut.

That includes America’s first gold medal of these Paralympics, in last week's women’s 400-meter freestyle S11, and a bronze in the 200-meter individual medley SM11 on Monday in Tokyo. Both feats came in the "11" categorization, for Paralympic swimmers with the lowest levels of visual acuity, a real challenge for athletes who have to make pinpoint turns at surging speeds.

But Pagonis is no stranger to challenge and hard work. She lost all of her usable vision at age 14 due to genetic retina disease and autoimmune retinopathy. She and her family have said she struggled with depression and even finding a swim coach. Yet she did find one, Marc Danin, who reportedly taught himself to swim sightless by wearing blacked-out goggles. Cue the hard lessons and long commutes for difficult training. And Pagonis swam lap after lap.

She is not just a Paralympic medalist and world record-holder in the women's 400-meter freestyle S11 with a time of 4:54.49; she’s a talented social media star with big Instagram and TikTok followings who look to her for insight into the joys and sometimes hardships of her daily life, lip-syncing and good humor included. Recently, those followers have been treated to Pagonis’ experiences arriving in Tokyo, hopping on those strange Olympic and Paralympic Village beds, and celebrating a weighty, incredible gold medal.

"It sounds a little cliché," Pagonis’ father Peter told Newsday, "but she got dealt lemons and she made lemonade."

There is a lesson in Pagonis’ triumphs for neighbors and fans back home: Great souls and hard workers and incredible talents are all around us, even if they are not famous or recognizable — yet. Athletes like Pagonis remind us that what some might see as impediments to success are actually challenges to be met, ones that can help expand our definition of the possible and show us that winning is not defined only by finishing first but also by overcoming barriers in our way.

Pagonis could win a third medal later this week, adding to her hardware, whose design includes the uplifting motif of a traditional Japanese fan, according to Paralympic.org, "depicting the Paralympic Games as the source of a fresh new wind blowing through the world as well as a shared experience connecting diverse hearts and minds."

Indeed it is.

There is a proud tradition of Long Islanders gracing the awards podium at Olympics and Paralympics past, continued this year by Pagonis, soccer star Crystal Dunn and diver Andrew Capobianco. We are sure Long Island will see many more victors of all types in years to come. They are future winners who just now might be picking up their first basketball or running cautiously around a track, charting the road ahead, no matter the obstacles in their way.