Menu:

Development

Picture
My first 'swimming' competition
I was absolutely terrified of water until I was 11 or 12.  In Africa, my school was pretty sporty and had an outdoor pool.  There were several swimming lessons and competitions for  all ages but I was just too scared of drowning to go into the water alone.  On the left is a picture of my first swimming competition - the aim was to get to the other side while holding a ball. Even this was too much for me, so here I can be seen running along the side of the pool holding my ball - I still lost!
Here in Britain, I took up swimming as part of physiotherapy at school.  My primary school had a small hydrotherapy pool which I used once a week.  But still I wasn't able to do this alone and needed someone to support me the entire session.  I did manage to get my 10 metre certificate eventually but I still made sure someone was  behind me incase I decided to freak out.
At my secondary school, there was a girl (Nikki) with the same type and level of disability as me, who was an excellent swimmer - she already swam at National level.  So my inability to swim unaided was questioned and efforts to get me going were soon put in place.  It took me about a year to feel confident enough to do whole lengths of a 25 metre pool but once I was, I was entered into a regional competition.  I was terrified!  However, after my first taste of competition I didn't stop.  I qualified for National competition and, unfortunately for Nikki, I began to dominate British S3 (see the Classification area within the Paralympic Movement section) swimming, breaking the 100m backstroke short course (25m pool) world record on several occasions.

International Swimming

Picture
Even though I broke world records very early on in my career, I didn't break onto the International scene until 2001.  The records I broke were within shortcourse competition where as all disability international competitions are swum in long course pools.  The difference is straightforward: Short course uses a 25 metre pool, and long course uses a 50 metre pool, as such the times people swim often differ between the two so records are different for the two types of competition. Therefore I couldn't be recognised Internationally until I started long course swimming.
My first major international meet was in Stockholm, Sweden for the European championships where I won two bronze medals.  At age 15, this was a pretty good start, and it was only a year later that I came home from the World Championships with five medals to my name.  I wont go into all my medal wins here as a breakdown can be found in the International competition section under the "Swimming Career" tab.  I've also played a part in a large number of relay teams, winning medals in all of them.  The picture above shows the Athens Paralympic 20pt relay team with our silver medals.
My greatest result, so far, has to be winning gold by 4 seconds in the 50m Backstroke at the 2006 World Championships in Durban, South Africa.  Having narrowly, and disappointingly, missed out on the gold at the Athens Paralympic games 2004 I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.  So to be able to finish the race and watch all the other competitors coming in after me was a good feeling.

Injury, Fight and Determination 

Picture
Photo Credit: Phil Mynott (CEN)
Being an athlete puts strains on everyone, but my career has been hampered by never ending injury and illnesses.  I don't think I have gone a whole year without an injury of some sort, causing me to take valuable time out from training.  
My right shoulder has caused the most trouble.  However, I had to have ankle surgery in 2005 to repair tendon damage that occurred in the run-up to the Athens Paralympic games in 2004.  This took 9 months to recover from and, I believe impacted upon my performances in Athens. 
Because I do not kick when swimming (due to co-ordination issues) and only use my legs at the starts and turns of my races, my arms take on 99% of the work.  Therefore, the on-going shoulder injury is not unexpected, yet, at the same time, it has largest impact on my career, compared to any other possible injury.

The Beijing Paralympic games 2008 was my biggest fight against injury thus far:

My shoulder became a serious problem just before the team departed for Beijing, my training had been going well and it looked as though Beijing would be a good games for me.  But I was back on the physio bed daily trying to settle things down.  My place on the team was uncertain, despite qualifying, at one point as my ability to race was questioned (by myself as well as the team management) but I managed to fight back and secure my plane  ticket to the holding camp.  
The holding camp for the games was in Macao. This was a two week period for us to fine tune our technique and speed.  Luckily for us, the swimming team has one of the best physios available, so daily treatment with him meant things were looking good.  That was until, the end of the camp came, I needed to prove myself fit for racing once more by doing a time trial.  My shoulder was clearly feeling the strain and was very painful.  Nevertheless, I knew it was only two more weeks until it would be able to give up - I'd got this far, I wasn't going home.  The time trial proved my ability, and we were off to Beijing.
The coach I was working with decided I would not have a day off until the day between my two races - in a 9 day racing program my races were on days 7 and 9. Therefore, I  was basically training everyday for four weeks.  This did make the pain worse in the end, but we knew that if I stopped for even a day my shoulder would just give up - so even on my one day off I had to do gym and exercises to keep it going.
My first race was the 50m Freestyle.  I only really had a chance at a bronze medal, and in realising I'd never failed to medal in a international race since 2001, I had to go for it - and I did.  In the heats I did just enough to make sure I made the final and get myself in a middle lane - it just so happened that I qualified in 3rd place anyway.  In the final, I managed to block out all the pain and just swam my way to a bronze medal - and my time wasn't too bad either - so I was pleased.
On the morning of my 50m backstroke (my main event) I woke up barely able to lift my arm above my head without excruciating pain traveling down my wole arm.  On the way to the pool for the heats I thought seriously about withdrawing from the race, but kept my thoughts to myself - I knew that if I told people how bad it was, they would force me to pull out.  I managed to get in the pool and warm up, but I cut my warm up down from 800m to 200m - this is never ideal, but 50m more would've ended it and I only needed 50m to complete the race.  The heat is a total blur, I remember having to physically throw my arm up to be able to swim, yet, somehow, I managed to qualify for the final in second place - there was no way I was withdrawing now.
Perhaps, if I'd known I wouldn't be able to move my arm due to extreme pain for a number of days after, I'd have withdrawn.  However, I was going to get a silver medal and, at the time, thats all I cared about.  Once again, I blocked everything out during the final and just swam. I did get silver, but when I reached the end the first thing I did was tell myself off for how poor the time was.  Looking back, it seems ridiculous taking everything into consideration, but at the time I was annoyed because I could've gone so much quicker.  However, although my Beijing 50m backstroke medal wasn't gold - like two years previous - I think it will always be my most treasured.
My shoulder is still not fixed and I am now waiting for my second operation on it in November (2009) which should hopefully get me back into training.