Marge Kõrkjas

Marge Kõrkjas (born 8 May 1974) is an Estonian Paralympic swimmer with a vision impairment, who has won seven medals at four Paralympics.

Competitive career

Born in Rakvere, Kõrkjas first participated at the Paralympics at the 1992 Barcelona Games, where she won a silver medal in the Women's 50 m Freestyle B2 event and a bronze medal in the Women's 100 m Freestyle B2 event. To prepare for the 1996 Games, she trained with abled-bodied swimmers, saying of this "They went into a constant uproar. We got to train at the same time, slowly and quietly, no-one noticed us." Her coach going into Atlanta was Rein Põldme. The city of Tartu contributed 10,000 krooni a year to the Kullman swimming pool where Kõrkjas trained to rent it out for use by children and disabled swimmers, but shortly before the start of the Paralympics, they discontinued funding as the pool requested an increase to 50,000 krooni a year for continued use of the pool. At the Games, she won two gold medals in the Women's 50 m Freestyle B2 and Women's 100 m Freestyle B2 events and a silver medal in the Women's 100 m Backstroke B2 event. Her medal haul helped Estonia to finish 32nd out of the 124 countries that competed. She carried the Estonian flag during the closing ceremony.