Elyria Sports Hall of Fame: Important lesson for MacKenzie Tweardy — dive right in | Chronicle Telegram Faced with the prospect of not playing sports her first year at Elyria Catholic, Tweardy turned to diving. That choice would eventually take her to the state tournament, the Big Ten, Team USA and ultimately the 2016 Olympic Trials.

A broken wrist may have shattered MacKenzie Tweardy's gymnastics dream, but somewhere in the pieces she found a path that led her to the doorstep of the Olympics. Faced with the prospect of not playing sports her first year at Elyria Catholic, Tweardy turned to diving. That choice would eventually take her to the state tournament, the Big Ten, Team USA and ultimately the 2016 Olympic Trials. Tweardy will be inducted into the Elyria Sports Hall of Fame on May 2 at Lorain County Community College, joining Elyria grads Amanda Medvetz, Joe Norton and Doug Foor, and fellow Elyria Catholic alum Joel Stuart and two teams — the 2009 state champion Murray Ridge basketball squad and the 1995 state champion Elyria West 4x100 relay team — in the Class of 2026. Dr. Dennis Carson will receive the Distinguished Service Award. "I was mostly just excited," Tweardy said of her upcoming enshrinement. "A couple of years ago my mom had let me know that someone from the Hall of Fame had asked to aggregate my accomplishments and put in a nomination, but I wasn't at the right age yet. So it was something that was in the back of my mind, but I never really expected this until it happened." If fate hadn't intervened, Tweardy may never have tried diving. Her first love growing up was gymnastics. She practiced four hours a day for years and was ready to compete during her high school season while also juggling volleyball and track. But in August of 2007 — just days into her freshman season — she broke her right wrist, which put an end to her competing for the volleyball team that season. She also wouldn't be able to get back on the gymnastics mat until December, not accounting for the time it would take to regain her form. However, diving was a different story. Even with the injury, she'd be cleared to get into the pool by October. And fortunately for Tweardy the sport shared a lot of similarities with gymnastics, opening the door to at least compete in something during her freshman season. There was just one catch: Diving was not her first love, to say the least. In fact, she was convinced she'd never do it again once her freshman year concluded. "My hand was forced," Tweardy said. "I wanted to do a high school sport, and the high school sport available to me at the moment was diving. I had to figure out how the heck to dive in a really short timeframe." Despite only practicing for four months, Tweardy finished seventh at the district meet, missing the final state qualifying spot by 50 points. That was enough to get her back into the pool as a sophomore, where she placed second at the district meet and ninth at the state meet. She followed up that success her junior year with another district runner-up finish, finishing seventh at state. At that point Tweardy decided diving was in, gymnastics was out. She competed in her final gymnastics meet during the summer after her junior year and was fully dedicated to bringing home a state diving title as a senior. She won a district championship and finished state runner-up by just a handful of points. "Competing at state my senior year was really fun," Tweardy said. "I wanted to win state, but missed it by a spot. I think back to that meet and remember going into it with my coach and just practicing constantly. It was devastating at the time to miss winning the title, but I look back at that with very fond memories." Tweardy also caught Purdue's eye and continued her success in the Big Ten. She finished second in both the 1-meter and 10-meter diving competitions at the 2013 Big Ten championships, and posted top-five finishes in the 1-meter and third-place finishes in the 10-meter both her junior and senior years, qualifying for the NCAA meet both times. Both of her All-American honors came in the 10-meter platform competitions, finishing eighth in 2014 and 12th in 2015. Tweardy's collegiate success earned her a chance to compete with USA Diving from 2013-15. She was a silver medalist at the 2013 World University Games. Her career concluded in 2016 as one of 27 divers invited to compete in the 10-meter platform competition at the 2016 Olympic Trials. She advanced to the final round and finished 10th. Only the top two divers advanced to compete in the Olympics. "It was awesome," Tweardy said. "It was a good meet. I didn't have an amazing preliminary. I clipped my toes on the first dive jacked up on adrenaline. My coach told me to just have fun, this could be my last meet so just take it one dive at a time. I had just a phenomenal meet and had so much fun competing. I got to hang out with a bunch of girls who I became good friends with competing against throughout college or Team USA events. Every one of us thought about being an Olympian at some point, and we actually got to compete and try to do it." Tweardy graduated from Purdue with a bachelor and masters in bioengineering and biomedical engineering. She has since spent most of her career focusing on wearable devices in the health care space. She currently is a senior data scientist with Oura and develops movement algorithms for the company's smart ring technology. She married her husband in November 2024. "Breaking my arm turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me," Tweardy said. "If I hadn't done that, I never would have tried diving or gone to Purdue or started my career in engineering or met my husband. Just keep pushing through whatever roadblock you get." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.