A warm welcome home for Torres
Ansonia, Fairfield U swimmer returns from Tokyo with bronze medal
The minute the elevator’s doors opened, and Gil Torres saw his son Matthew, he was overcome with emotions.
The Paralympic medalist, and Gil’s only child, was finally back home for the first time in over a year.
Torres rushed to embrace his son. He followed by a small handful of friends and family who also had come to the Newark Liberty International Airport (N.J.) for Monday’s surprise welcome home party in baggage claim.
With tears in his eyes, Torres reached and grabbed his son’s left wrist and raised it high.
“The champ is here!” he shouted as the crowd responded back with applause and ‘U-S-A’ chants.
Matthew Torres returned home to Ansonia this week after spending the past year in Colorado training for the 2020 Paralympics. The Fairfield University junior returns home as one of the United States’ top paraswimmers and a bronze Paralympic medalist after making his debut in the Summer Games in Tokyo this summer.
“Our son has returned home after being away for so long. That was so hard, but hard in a beautiful way,” Gil said. “Like finally, I got to hold him again and he came home with a medal, which I mean, how much more can you ask for? That was just absolutely amazing.”
Since he was 7 and watched Michael Phelps compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Matthew, who was born with amniotic band syndrome and missing half of his right leg, always had the goal of competing in the Paralympics. He started swim lessons a week after watching Phelps and became classified in paraswimming two years later. He won meet after meet and never slowed down.
After his freshman collegiate season at Fairfield was cut short a week by the pandemic, Torres made the decision to move to Colorado in August 2020 to train year-round with the U.S. national team for the chance to make Team USA the following spring ahead of the Paralympics.
Torres came home for just two weeks between August 2020 and September 2021. For two weeks during December, he was able to be with family and friends for the holidays before going back to training.
The commitment paid off in June when he officially made the Team USA paraswim Paralympic roster.
“That was a really really big moment,” Martha, Matthew’s mom, said. While both her and Gil were not able to watch the paraswim trials in person because of safety protocols, they were able to meet with Matthew in a hotel following the meet when the roster was announced. “It was amazing. We were so happy we were able to be there for him.”
In Tokyo, Matthew, one of six athletes with ties to Connecticut, competed in four events for Team USA: the 100-meter S8 freestyle, the 100m S8 backstroke, the 400m S8 freestyle and was the third leg on the U.S.’s men’s 4x100-meter medley relay.
It was in the 400m S8 freestyle final where the 20-year-old won his first career Paralympic medal.
After advancing to the event’s final with the top seed out of the prelims, Torres began the final about a second behind eventual gold-medalist Andrei Nikolaev from the Russian Paralympic Committee. However, with less than 100 meters to go, Torres fell into third place after Italy’s Alberto Amodeo passed him on the 300-meter turn.
Torres kept his pace throughout the final meters and won the bronze medal in a time of 4 minutes, 28.47 seconds to earn his first trip up on the Paralympic podium.
Back in Ansonia, Martha and Gil had woken up early, 4 a.m. local time to be exact, to watch their son compete in his first Paralympic final. They had held a mini watch party with friends during his prelim the night before but kept the final viewing just between them.
“It was amazing to see,” Gil said. “To see that Matthew made the podium it doesn’t matter where. He made the podium. Which means he’s top three in the world and in this particular case, there’s no other American on the podium, so he’s got the strongest record for that time and that category. It’s absolutely unbelievable. … To see him achieve that level of success this fast it’s hard to put into words. It’s just utterly amazing.”
Martha and Gil cried hearing Matthew’s name called as he placed the bronze medal around his neck on the podium. Both parents had work at 9 a.m., but they knew there was no going back to sleep at that point.
“It’s amazing,” Martha said. “It’s a blessing that Matthew’s been able to reach the goal to go to the Paralympics and win a medal. That’s a very low percent of people that can reach that.”
When the family of three reunited on Monday in the baggage claim of the Newark Airport, it made the past year of not being together and balancing all the different time zones and schedules all worth it.
“We saw his face turn red and he was smiling and he couldn’t contain himself,” Gil said of embracing Matthew at the airport. “We just surrounded him and we hugged him and I draped him with the [American] flag. It was wonderful. I know he fought really really hard from shedding tears right there.”
While the family hosted a private celebration party with friends and family this weekend, the town of Ansonia plans to honor Matthew at its Harvest Festival on Sept. 25.
And as for Matthew, despite Fairfield just beginning the team’s preseason workouts, he’s already looking ahead to the next big thing.
“He’s already setting his sights and he’s starting to focus on these other events that are going to take place and that’s Matthew’s nature. That’s who he is. He’s just that seriously focused on the next big thing,” Gil said. “I have no doubt that he’s going to turn heads again and do amazing things. Again, that’s him.”