Saxon Annie Flood ‘21 was on the path to the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan- and then, the pandemic hit.
Growing up with two athletic older sisters, Flood remembers wanting to be like them when she grew up. Flood’s first sport was soccer, which she played for ten years. She joined a volleyball team in middle school. Three years later, she was playing for the South Salem Volleyball team. Today, she’s on the U. S. Women’s Sitting Volleyball team and is set to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics.
A year into her volleyball career, Flood discovered sitting volleyball, a form of volleyball played from a seated position. Flood was born with fibular hemimelia and has used a prosthetic since she was a year old, and was therefore eligible to try out for the U. S. Women’s Sitting Volleyball team.
In 2017, 14-year-old Flood made the team. During her first two years of high school, Flood went between the Saxon standing volleyball team, and the national team, which she practiced with one weekend per month in Edmond, Oklahoma. Flood began to focus solely on sitting volleyball in her junior year after earning a spot on the top national sitting volleyball team in 2019. That same year, her and her team won gold at the World ParaVolley World Super 6 competition.
Team practices have been temporarily suspended due to COVID and The International Paralympic Committee has postponed the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo to Tuesday, August 24, 2021, where Flood and her teammates will represent the US in the Women’s sitting volleyball events.
Flood is the youngest on a team of elite athletes from all over the country, but this hasn’t stopped her from bonding with her teammates. She feels grateful to get along with all of her teammates well, and credits much of her success to them and other people in her life: “I’m really grateful, not just for the sport, but for the people I’ve met and the places I’ve gone.” said Flood. “My teammates have taken the time out of their lives to take me under their wing and mentor me. […] I was blessed with a family who is extremely supportive of every single thing I do. I have a really great support system with my family, my friends, [and my] coaches.”
“I’m really grateful, not just for the sport, but for the people I’ve met and the places I’ve gone.”
Annie Flood ’21
Outside of the court, Flood is passionate about music and her dog, Harper. She enjoys spending time with family and friends and traveling.
