PARALYMPIC SPORTS
USA Swimming Paralympic Trials Storylines for the Uninitiated
Katie Ledecky is not the most decorated Marylander looking to lead Team USA women’s swimming into Paris with a peerless medal record among her contemporaries. Michael Phelps is not the most decorated North Baltimore Aquatic Club alum on the sport’s grandest global stage.
A then-7-year-old Ledecky was barely a year into finding her forte around Bethesda while Phelps was looking to build on his foundation from a hardware-free excursion to the 2000 Sydney Olympics when Jessica Long pursued her first Paralympics.
At age 19, Phelps had his sophomore surge at the Athens Games in 2004, garnering gold in six events plus two bronzes. His overall haul through the latter half of that August was an all-time high among competitors in any Olympiad featuring all eligible nations.
At age 12, Long had a preteen breakout in the latter half of that September, although due to broadcasting inequity, the adopted Russia native’s new homeland saw it all on a two-month tape delay via the Outdoor Life Network. Come what may, she won her S8 class’s (for amputees) tournaments in the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyle races and helped a quartet to first place in the 4x100 freestyle relay.
She has since settled for lower shades at four other Paralympics but has never left any without at least one gold. Now she enters Team USA’s trials for a passport to Paris with 29 Paralympic medals on her transcript, edging Phelps’ Olympic platform pose count by one.
The trials will take place over the final weekend of June at the University of Minnesota’s Freeman Aquatic Center. A program press release expects 90-plus candidates (nearly twice the number of 54 officially rostered swimmers) across 14 classes, vying for spots in 71 men’s, 64 women’s, and six coed events. With those who triumph in the intramural heats, Team USA will proceed to Paris in late August and collectively defend 15 gold medals (third-most of any nation at the 2020 Games) and 35 overall (fifth-most in Tokyo).
Long is the natural standard-bearer on a women’s team listing 14 players on its A roster, 11 on the B, and five on the C. All of them, along with their male counterparts and dozens of walk-ons will vie for a spot in a Paralympic Games poised to attract the most media coverage in the entity’s history.
Other key returnees and departures from the Tokyo team
One quarter of the Long-led 4x100 medley team that won its first gold medal since 2004 will not seek a repeat. Mikaela Jenkins, who also finished first in the S10 100-meter butterfly in Tokyo, called it a career ahead of this season. Sophia Herzog — a two-time runner-up medalist in the SB6 100-meter breaststroke — retired last winter rather than opting for a charming third stab at the Games.
That said, Long is rejoined by a dozen defending American medalists, including 4x100 medley associates Hannah Aspden and Morgan Stickney. The other six female and four male decorated Tokyo vets seeking a bid to Paris are Mallory Weggemann (two golds and a silver); Julia Gaffney (two bronzes); McKenzie Coan (one gold, one silver); Elizabeth Marks (one medal of each shade); Colleen Young (a silver and a bronze); Anastasia Pagonis (gold and bronze); Gia Pergolini (gold); Evan Austin (gold and bronze); Jamal Hill (bronze); Matthew Torres (bronze); and David Abrahams (silver).
Golden Bearing down
S8 (cerebral palsy) swimmer Noah Jaffe returns to the site of his favorable first stateside impression in an international pool. At the 2023 World Series, he nabbed silver in the mixed-class men’s 100-meter freestyle and bronze in the 50-meter and 400-meter freestyles, setting a Team USA record in the latter event for his class.
Jaffe — who had broken out in 2022 by cracking the selective mixed-class, mixed-gender quartet for the first para swimming edition of the U.S.-Australia Duel in the Pool, opposite Coan, Hill, and Lizzi Smith — followed that tone to the world championships in Manchester, England, and won four medals, including 100-meter freestyle gold.
Still an undergraduate at the University of California-Berkeley, Jaffe told USParaSwimming.org last spring about his itch to append some Paralympic representation to another ornately Olympic entity. The Golden Bears swim program has seen twenty-five American alumni — with Missy Franklin being the most accomplished — plus eleven graduates from other countries win at least one medal. All connections are commemorated on the murals of the Spieker Aquatics Center, where Jaffe trains solo and has competed part-time with the Cal club team.
“I would like for there to one day be a Paralympic extension,” Jaffe told Team USA’s website last May. Hopefully I’m the first of many that come through there.”
New blood flowing from Cedar Falls?
The University of Northern Iowa has two chances to send a student-athlete to a third straight Summer Paralympics.
Olivia Chambers, who swims in the S13 division for the visually impaired is coming off a dazzling first impression at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships, where she snagged two silvers and four bronzes. From there, she returned to campus for her junior season, and was named the Missouri Valley Conference’s swimmer of the week — her second such career honor — in late January after keying the Panthers’ bright spots in a 198–155 loss at Illinois State. There she placed first in the 400-yard individual medley and 1,000-yard freestyle and second in the 500-yard freestyle.
Back in the internation ranks, Chambers beat out the seasoned Young and Marks for first place in a mixed-class breaststroke at mid-April’s Para Swimming World Series in Indianapolis. Young is a fellow SB13 swimmer in the more marquee competitions
Two days later, Chambers topped the mixed-class 200-meter individual medley, besting two more bigwigs in Weggeman and the perennial juggernaut Long.
Chambers’ UNI teammate and classmates, Cali Prochaska, made her first international impression at the 2019 Parapan American Games, then an encore in Santiago, Chile, this past November. The core points of her repertoire are the S9 100m butterfly and 400m freestyles, SB8 100-meter breaststroke, and SM9 200-meter individual medley.
UNI has previously sent Jessica Heims and Erin Kerkhoff to the U.S. Para Track and Field program. Heims competed in the 2016 and 2020 Games, joined by Kerkhoff in the latter.
First ripples
Six first-place finishers at a given World Series race still have yet to attain their own profile page on the para swimming program’s website. Noah Busch; Chloe Cederholm; Owen McNear; Grace Nuhfer; Aiden Stivers; Braxton Wong. But Nuhfer turned heads by topping the likes of Smith — a two-time Paralympian and three-time medalist — in the S8–14 women’s 100-meter butterfly.
“I wasn’t expecting to see that kind of result at this meet, just because of how training is going,” the S13 specialist told USParaSwimming.org afterward.
