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Laura Chapman goes for the gold
Tennis player wins gold medal in Deaf Olympics
| Sept 18, 2013
Sports
The Saber | Columbus State University
Franchesca Renfroe
Staff Writer
Tennis player Laura Chapman, a CSU Senior had a chance to go over to Bulgaria and play in the Deaf Olympics, where she and her partner Emily won the gold medal for doubles on Team USA. Chapman says that her being able to go over to Bulgaria was a pure blessing and a funny dose of happenstance. Finding out that she had to go to Bulgaria at the beginning of the summer, the tennis player only had two months to raise $5000 to go overseas. “I raised 90 percent of my money in 3 weeks. I sent out letters, told people word of mouth. It was just a really big blessing to raise that much money quickly. I actually raised over so that was really a blessing,” said Laura. From hard work and practice, Chapman went to Bulgaria and swept the other teams out of the competition. “I remember watching all the other doubles team and thinking ‘we can beat every one of these girls’ and we did. We beat them. And we didn’t just beat them, we killed. That moment when we won the final point, and I served and the girl hit the ball but she hit it out, I remembered I screamed and I ran up to Emily and we hugged. It was awesome. I don’t think the fact that I’ve won a gold medal has hit me yet. It was like I kind of knew it was going to happen. I was already kind of prepared for it. I sort of knew we had it from the beginning,” said Laura, regarding her win. While Laura was in Bulgaria she kept in touch with Columbus through postcards from Bulgaria, which she wrote for the Ledger Enquirer. Each day she would write a letter to the people of Columbus to keep them up-to-date with her experiences in Bulgaria, and how God has made a way for her. The posts are truly inspirational. Chapman is a humbled individual. Growing up with partial hearing loss, Laura never let that slow her down. “You have no idea what you’re about to experience. That’s what I’d tell myself,” said Laur ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????!???????????????????????5???????????e????????????????????????????Q??????????()I????????????????????))????!???)
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