Please let me take this opportunity to introduce myself and to share with you how I came to be a Paralympian, and how my involvement in sport has, in many different ways, shaped and influenced my life and who I am. Swimming has always been a part of my life – as a child growing up with a disability, my parents signed me up for lessons at a very young age. At first, swimming was used as a means to encourage physical activity – but it also quickly became something that I could do alongside my friends, something I was good at, and something that I really enjoyed. I was eleven when someone suggested that I start swimming competitively, and although I wasn’t convinced that competition would be for me, I decided to try it out. After joining a local team and winning a few medals at my first swim meet, I was hooked!

It was at a meet that I heard about the Paralympics for the first time – explained to me as being an elite multi-sport competition for athletes with a disability held immediately following the Olympic Games. This event captured my imagination, and I immediately had bold ambitions of making the team headed to the 1996 Games in Atlanta. I began learning about what it took to be an athlete, and started to train more seriously. Being an athlete meant setting goals – and working hard to achieve them. I also learned that unfortunately, sometimes, hard work isn’t enough. I experienced many successes and disappointments in sport – an early disappointment being that I did not make the 1996 Paralympic team. It was devastating at the time, but I re-grouped and firmly set my sights on the 2000 Paralympic Summer Games in Sydney, Australia!