BME’s Cassie Mitchell adds to her medal count in pursuit of her fourth Paralympic Games bid.
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Cassie Mitchell competed in the F51 club throw and the combined F51-52-53 discus at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in Paris, winning silver in both events. (Photo: Marcus Hartmann, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee)
Paralympian and Georgia Tech biomedical engineer Cassie Mitchell has taken another step toward a fourth trip to the Paralympic Games, winning silver medals in discus and club throw at the World Para Athletics Championships this month in Paris.
Mitchell won silver in the F51 club throw July 16 with a season-best throw of 20.95 meters. It’s the same event where she won silver at the 2020 Paralympics.
She also set an F51 championship record and secured a silver medal in the combined F51-52-53 discus competition July 12.
Paralympians are grouped into classifications according to their disability. Mitchell is classified as a 51 athlete; they are the most severely disabled athletes who have impairments in all four limbs (the "F" refers to field athletes). Several classifications are combined in the discus event.
“Obviously the goal is always gold, but I feel very blessed to have come here and won two silver medals,” Mitchell told Team USA’s website. “Paris 2024 is the big one, so everything is about taking that next step to 2024. I want that gold medal.”
Mitchell is an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. She’s a three-time Paralympian, and currently holds the American record in F51 club throw.
Mitchell said success at the 2023 World Championships is an important step on the way to the 2024 Paralympic Games.
“I’ve been at it since 2012, and I can’t wait to hopefully be back here in 2024,” she told Team USA’s Kristen Gowdy. “A silver medal is a great way to prepare for Paris next year.”
Mitchell is a graduate of the Georgia Tech and Emory biomedical engineering Ph.D. program and returned to the Coulter BME faculty in 2017.
Mitchell with the silver medal she won in the F51-52-53 discus competition at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in Paris. (Photo Courtesy: Cassie Mitchell)
Her research focuses on harnessing the power of big data and machine learning to forecast disease, identify new therapeutics, and optimize treatments. She calls herself a “pathology forecaster” working at the intersection of engineering, data science, and pathophysiology.
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