As Liana Mutia heads to her second Paralympic Games, she'll be hoping to score her first medal in para judo.

But according to Mutia, it's not her time on the tatami in Paris that will determine her success. Instead, it's the months of planning that have led up to this.

"I've never won a match in the moment, because I'm not strong," the 25-year-old explained. "I'm not really all that aggressive either. Every single match I've won, I won it six months ago, I won it a year ago, I won it a few years ago."

Like other para judo athletes, Mutia has a vision impairment. She has ischemic optic neuropathy, and additional complications have caused her to become totally blind.

After losing her vision completely, Mutia had to relearn how to do most things — including judo.

"There's so much information that you're taking in with your eyes," she explained. "When you have no vision, all of the information that you were currently getting — for example, when you are trying to balance, or just walk around, or do things on your own — you're always looking at something, no matter what. ... When I became totally blind, I completely took that for granted. My sense of space and my level of independent skill was absolutely terrible for a period of time. I had to basically rehash and relearn how to fight from the ground up again."

At the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, Mutia lost in the Round of 16. She's since moved to a lower weight class (57kg) and has been finding success. The North Carolina native has won bronze medals at back-to-back world championships and even held the No. 1 world ranking in her weight class at one point.

Mutia recently worked as a software analyst for Comcast's accessibility team, and although having a full-time job limited how much she could train, she found ways to use her tech background to help drive her success on the mat.

It's called test-driven development, and it refers to a specific type of software development methodology.

For Mutia, her form of test-driven development involves inputting all sorts of data about potential opponents into a spreadsheet and analyzing it to gain advantages in combat.

"From the information, I'll draw out patterns of behavior, and from those patterns of behavior I'll draw out solutions," she explained. "And that's really the secret to my success."

She does prepare physically too, of course. Mutia had a gym in her office that she was able to use for physical conditioning sessions in the middle of the day, and once she was off the clock, she headed out for several hours of judo training most nights.

Not only has that judo training made her a force to be reckoned with at the Paralympics, it also improved her quality of life at home in Philadelphia.

"I am a small, blind woman, who is not all that strong, who lives alone in the middle of a city," Mutia said. "I get harassed quite often on the street. People grab me a lot, or people will for whatever reason try to guide me to wherever they think I'm going, usually without my permission. So the ability to defend myself, or to have a little bit more confidence when I'm out and about and walking around is valuable."

That confidence extends to competition as well. At the Paris Paralympics, Mutia will compete on Thursday, Sept. 5 in the women's 57kg J1 class, and she already has an idea of success laid out for when she gets there.

"I'm incredibly excited," Mutia said. "Paris is Paris. I'm going to go get a medal. After I get a medal, I am lactose intolerant, but I will be eating a lot of butter and cheese and ice cream."

"And then after I do that, I will suffer," she added with a laugh, "but that's fine because I'm in Paris."