Meet Louisville Swimmer Mia Clark

The finish time on the clock could never truly reflect how hard Mia Clark works before every swim meet.

The figure doesn’t show how many surgeries she juggled alongside her training, the days it takes her to recover from hard practice and all the hours she spent in physical therapy learning to walk again.

This also doesn’t take into account the fact that she is among Kentucky’s premier para swimmers.

Or that one of his legs is a few centimeters shorter than the other.

“When you look at a para-athlete, it might not seem as impressive over time, but athletes with disabilities have to go into these workouts and give 200 percent just to make it from one end to the other. the pool.” Mia said. “They try so much harder than you could ever think.”

She recently competed in the 2024 Paralympic Trials held in Minneapolis, and while she didn’t land a spot on the team for the Paris 2024 Paralympics, she still has her sights set on the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.

His immediate goal is much closer to home.

She’s not just making a splash as a competitor.

She is a trailblazer and serves on the board of directors for Kentucky Swimming, hoping to encourage other Kentucky para swimmers.

When Mia started swimming in middle school, she only knew one other male competitor in the Commonwealth, but over time a handful of other para swimmers joined the sport. A small community has grown around him, allowing him to support other young swimmers as they learn to work with sports officials to outline the modifications needed to compete. Able-bodied swimmers do not have to explain in detail how their body works or what assistance they need to compete.

“When I really started to love it was when I realized it was hard because I was the first,” Mia said. “But I could help so many other people after me.”

“There is passion and courage in her”

Watching Mia walk across the pool deck at the Mary T. Meagher Aquatic Center, 201 Reservoir Ave, feels like a miracle in more ways than one for her family.

When her parents, Holly and Brad Clark, adopted her from China at 17 months old, they prayed that one day she would be able to walk with a walker, but even that seemed like a reach. She was born with club foot and spina bifida, which caused paralysis from the knee to the foot of her right leg.

But with daily physical therapy, coupled with a desire to “catch up” with her two older sisters, Mia was taking shaky steps on her own by age two and a half.

“There’s a passion and courage about her,” Brad said. “When there’s a challenge, she rises to the occasion.”

Mia has always had a competitive side, but it took a few years to figure out how to channel it. As she watched her friends at school sign up for various sports, she tried to figure out where she could excel.

The first time she had the opportunity to swim at a school, she was so nervous that she arrived early. But when Mia entered the water, the strength she had built up in her arms from compensating in her legs took over. She beat many of her classmates into the pool.

The more she learned about para-swimming, the more it seemed like a good solution. She was less likely to injure herself in the water than participating in another activity on land. With a lot of trial and error, she learned when she needed to push herself as a competitor and when her body needed more rest than the able-bodied swimmers at her club.

“In the water it was tough,” Mia said of learning to compete. “Kicking has never been my friend, it’s definitely something I’ve always had to work on.”

Around the time Mia started swimming, the challenges she faced on land increased.

The schoolgirl developed a clubfoot on her left foot and its repair required several surgeries. The braces she wore on her legs created wounds that she couldn’t feel because of her paralysis. She finished eighth grade and entered high school needing a scooter to walk.

People often stared at the bulky white medical shoes she wore to accommodate her braces, which she said seemed too big for her figure.

Despite this, she continued to move forward. She joined a competitive swim team in 2021.

In training, no one looked like her, she remembered, and it often felt like no one understood why her swim times weren’t as fast as everyone else’s. Kentucky lags behind other states, like Indiana and Ohio, in terms of the aquatic facilities it can offer para-athletes, said Mia’s current swim coach, Nick Graves of the Lakeside Seahawks. When he was coaching at Georgia, para-swimming was extremely popular because Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympics.

But in Kentucky, Mia was truly an anomaly in the pool.

It was through traveling and competing in para-swimming competitions across the country that she finally felt part of a community. With her competitive edge, Brad and Holly naturally wanted Mia to succeed in swimming. But at the same time, the more they learned about what other para swimmers had overcome, the more they encouraged everyone.

“Every athlete does their best, and it’s a challenge, and you have to overcome a lot,” Mia said. “A lot of athletes I’ve met in the Paralympic community have doctor’s appointments and all these medical things that you’ll never see in the water, it’s so much harder than you can imagine .”

“It’s a bit of a headache.”

From the stands, Mia doesn’t look that different from the other members of the Lakeside Seahawks, even if her techniques are.

Most of the time, before a race, she clings to her father’s forearm when she gets on the racing block. Before the race, her father’s body acts almost as a scaffold to support her, as she does not feel the block beneath her due to the paralysis in her feet. When she is ready, she nods to the officials to let them know she is. When the horn sounds, she jumps and swims. For the back, Graves will lie down on the starting block and hand her two gymnastic rings to stabilize her, as her paralysis causes her feet to slide on the wall before the race.

Part of the challenge in para-athletics is finding a way to modify a sport for an athlete while an able-bodied competitor conforms to the sport.

“As a coach, it’s a bit of a headache,” Graves said. “You have to constantly try to understand things from a technical point of view. We continue to work on what works best for her and her body.

While she was training in the pool, she also worked hard in physiotherapy, and gradually she began to feel confident again. With the support of her teachers, friends and family, she was finally able to travel to and from her classes at Ballard High School without a scooter.

On graduation day, she walked across the stage on two feet to accept her diploma. She is now a sophomore at the University of Louisville’s College of Business and juggles a rigorous course load with training alongside the Lakeside Seahawks, individual work with Graves and even Bible studies with some members of the University of Louisville. team.

Advances in orthodontic appliances have also been extremely helpful. The Clarks were able to comfortably fit these supports into a pair of the ever-popular HOKA shoes. They attached several soles to the bottom of his right shoe so that it was even with the left one. The shoes have given Mia a boost of confidence while allowing her to move around more easily.

In an unexpected way, the trendy shoes also helped her make friends.

Very often, people looked at his feet and legs curiously, but never really knew what to say to him. Now, when other students or swimmers ask him about his HOKAs, it gives him the opportunity to share his story and educate others about para-athletics.

And while training for the 2028 Paralympics is certainly not off the table, her current focus is on strengthening Para-swimming in Kentucky.

She knows how much sport has given her and she can’t wait for other young para-athletes to find strength in it too.

“She is who she is because of this challenge,” Brad Clark said. “She is a strong, beautiful, wonderful girl who is incredible and who made the best of a very difficult situation. I hope other girls and other people can be inspired and realize that even in the midst of their struggles, there is hope.

Reach features columnist Maggie Menderski at [email protected].

This article originally appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal: University of Louisville Mia Clark Kentucky Paralympics 2024