Tokyo Paralympic Champion Mallory Weggemann Appears Alongside Top Chef Finalists

Tokyo Paralympic Champion Mallory Weggemann is a threat not only in the pool but also in the kitchen with some of the best chefs in the world.

Top Chef, a reality cooking competition series in the US, spent the majority of its 20th season in London, but the penultimate season episode saw the remaining four competitors travel to Paris. As Paris is the site of the next Olympic Games, it was only fitting that the competition would have an Olympic/Paralympic twist. 

In the challenge, broadcast on June 1st for the show’s 300th episode, the contestants were paired with Tokyo Olympians and Paralympians, who the chefs had to instruct through a wall without seeing their partner. Each pair was given specific ingredients to make a dish, and the chef and athlete’s dishes needed to be as close to identical as possible.

Weggemann was one of the four Tokyo Olympians and Paralympians to compete alongside the four Top Chef finalists. The other Olympians/Paralympians that made appearances were three-time Paralympic Games medalist Hunter Woodhall, three-time Olympic Games medalist Suni Lee, and two-time Olympic medalist and world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

Weggemann was paired with Ali Ghzawi, a Jordan native, who seamlessly directed the Paralympian through the process of creating a potato and leek soup in the clip below, which ended up being the top dish and winning the pair the quickfire challenge, in the clip shown below or at this link. The judges attributed the pair’s success to Ghzawi leading Weggemann through the use of measurement cups to make their dishes nearly identical.

The #TopChef finalists team up with some 🇺🇸 Olympians and Paralympians for an unforgettable challenge! All-new World All Stars TOMORROW 🌎🔪 pic.twitter.com/voYHE9hT6H

— Bravo Top Chef (@BravoTopChef) May 31, 2023

Weggemann is a Paralympic swimmer in the S7/SM7 classes who has competed internationally for the U.S. since 2009. She is the former world record holder in the S7 50m freestyle and S7 200m individual medley. Her most recent Paralympic competition was the  2020 Tokyo Paralympic Olympic Games, where she won gold in both the SM7 200m individual medley and the S7 100m backstroke, as well as a silver in the S7 50m butterfly. Her victory in the backstroke came in a Paralympic record time of 1:21.27. 

Weggemann and her husband, Jay Snyder, also recently welcomed their first child, Charlotte Ann Snyder, on March 16th of this year.