At age 15, Rudy Garcia-Tolson had a deal with his mom. If he qualified for the Athens 2004 Games, he could get a tattoo of the Olympic rings.
Garcia-Tolson made it to Greece and even earned a 200m individual medley swimming gold medal. He inked the rings, in color, on the back of his left shoulder.
And if Garcia-Tolson competes at his fourth straight Paralympics in Rio in September, he is ready to tape over the tattoo to keep from being disqualified.
“I fully feel like I’m an Olympian,” Garcia-Tolson said last week at an event for one of his sponsors, Citi, in New York.