Paralympian Ali Truwit got a personal call from Tom Cruise before she won a pair of silver medals in Paris.
The “Top Gun: Maverick” star called the swimmer on Wednesday, Sept. 4, before two of her swimming events.
In a video of the moment, Truwit greeted Cruise on speakerphone. She told Cruise that the moment was “the coolest thing ever,” to which the actor responded, “You are the coolest thing ever.”
The swimmer’s mom, Jody Truwit, told TODAY via email that one of her best friends from college brought her daughter’s story to the actor’s attention. The call served as “a pick-me-up good luck surprise” for the swimmer.
She said Cruise’s main message to her daughter on the call, which lasted around five minutes, was to “go have fun.”
Jody Truwit paraphrased the rest of their conversation and Cruise’s encouraging words as, “You’ve trained. You’ve worked so hard. You’ve already won in my mind. We’re cheering for you.”
In addition to offering his support, Cruise also invited Truwit to visit the set of the eighth “Mission: Impossible” film in London.
In the days that followed the call from Cruise, Truwit had two big wins during the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.
She took home two silver medals, first for the women’s 400-meter freestyle S10 event on Sept. 5 and then for the 100-meter backstroke S10 on Sept. 6.
The 2024 Paris Games marks Truwit’s first as a Paralympian. The swimmer, who previously competed on Yale University’s swim team, was attacked by a shark in May 2023 while snorkeling in the Turks and Caicos Islands with her former teammate.
“A shark came up and started attacking us and aggressively bumping us and ramming us from underneath, and we fought back and shoved and kicked, but pretty quickly it got my leg in its mouth,” Truwit told TODAY on Aug. 23. “And the next thing I knew, it had bitten off my foot and part of my leg.”
After the attack, she underwent multiple blood transfusions and surgeries, which included amputation. In the aftermath, she said that adjusting to her new reality was difficult and that she “didn’t want anyone to see my prosthetic leg.”
She eventually made her way back to the pool, and her former coach came out of retirement to help with recovery.
Truwit ultimately returned to competing that same year, and in December 2023, she medaled at the U.S. Paralympics Swimming National Championships. Months later, she went on to qualify for the Paralympics.
Coach Jamie Barone has said that Truwit is the “hardest worker” he has ever met.
“If at any point in time she had texted me or called me and said, ‘You know what, I’m just going to curl up in a ball today, and I’m going to cry.’ Everyone in the world would be like, ‘That checks out. You take the day, you do whatever,’” Barone added. “Not once. She has never once missed a day of practice.”