After 25 years coaching the United States’ most successful Paralympic sailing team of all time, it was an “ironic” turn of events for Hall-of-Fame racer Betsy Alison as she herself became a para athlete in the final months of 2022.

The five-time Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year dominated an array of different sailboat classes throughout her professional career, but it wasn’t until August 2023 that she found herself back on top of the World Championships — this time, with a disability.

In November of 2022, a team of surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital removed a cancerous tumor the size of a football from Alison’s hip, subsequently removing 90% of her glute muscles, part of her femur, half of her pelvis and reconfiguring much of her hip and upper leg muscles.

“I had no idea whether I was going to come out with a leg,” she told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview following her podium performance at Worlds.

Preparing to enter the operating room, she recalled the doctors saying, “Look, we’re going to save as much as we can, but we can’t tell you the extent of what’s going to happen”.

Nine months later, Alison was standing on top of the podium in the Netherlands at the 2023 Sailing World Championships with a gold medal around her neck.