Female athletes at the highest level of their sports are bad—es. But they reach a whole new level of superhuman ability in fans' eyes after competing professionally while pregnant. Recently, that's exactly what Paralympic archer Tracy Otto did.
Serena Williams won a grand slam title while 20 weeks pregnant at the Australian Open in 2017. Nada Hafez, an Egyptian fencer, was seven months pregnant when she competed at the 2024 Paris Olympics in July. Now, Otto revealed she is pregnant with her first child mere days after completing at the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games on August 31.
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Paralympic archer Tracy Otto announced her pregnancy two days after competing in Paris.
On September 2, Tracy, 28, took to Instagram to announce that she and her partner, Ricky Riessle, are expecting their first child.
“We have been keeping a secret…,” she wrote. “Paralympian ✅ Proposal ✅ …. Pregnant! .”
Tracy added, “Baby Riessle due January 2025!!” including a sonogram in the third photo of her Instagram carousel.
Two days before, she announced her engagement with photos of the proposal at the Eiffel Tower.
On the same day Tracy competed in archery at the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games, she turned to Instagram to share an exciting life update. “I may not have won a medal today but I am going home with something shiny ,” she declared.
The carousel of photos showed Ricky proposing to her near the Eiffel Tower, with the last image showcasing her engagement ring.
Another post showed a video of the romantic proposal.
Also on August 31, a joint Instagram post from Tracy, Team USA, USA Archery, and NBC Olympics celebrated the big news. The update featured a video of Ricky proposing to Tracy.
USA Archery captioned the post, “#ParisParalympics in the city of LOVE congratulations to Team USA’s Tracy Otto and Rick Riessle!”
Meanwhile, the official Paralympics Instagram account commented, “Big love! ❤️ congratulations!”
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Five years before, Tracy was paralyzed during a horrific attack at the hands of her ex-boyfriend.
In October 2019, Tracy and Ricky were assaulted by her ex-boyfriend in her Tampa, Florida, home. Tracy was paralyzed from the chest down, leaving her with “limited use of her arms and hands” after the attack, she told the BBC. Additionally, Tracy lost her left eye in the attack.
The incident happened about a month Tracy broke up with her ex and starting dating Ricky.
“He comes back to my house, breaks in and wakes us up, screaming at us to get out of bed,” Tracy told the BBC on August 28. “He tells us that he’s going to kill us and that if he didn’t kill himself, he was going to call the police.”
She and Ricky survived the traumatizing incident and both took up archery.
Tracy was punched multiple times, shot in her left eye, stabbed in the back of the neck, and sexually assaulted during the attack. Meanwhile, Ricky was shot in the face and stabbed in the back. The ex called police, telling them he “killed my girlfriend and new boyfriend,” she told the BBC. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
In the wake of the traumatic incident, Tracy and Ricky continued dating. He took up archery in March 2021, prompting Tracy to do the same.
“And I just thought, ‘Why not try archery?’ Ricky was like. ‘Your hands don’t work’, but I just thought we’d figure it out,” she told the news outlet. “I did some research and found we have an adaptive archery course in our area. A week later I was shooting for the first time.”
