Blind athlete prepares for summer Paralympic games
Blind athlete prepares for summer Paralympic games
July 22, 2004
A UMNS photo by John Gordon
Carrie Willoughby takes a break during training at the Lakeshore Foundation Paralympic training center.
Carrie
Willoughby takes a break during training at the Lakeshore Foundation
Paralympic training center in Birmingham. Photo #04-293 7/22/04
By John Gordon*
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (UMNS) — Carrie Willoughby knows that success sometimes means swimming against the tide.
The
26-year-old Birmingham, Ala., athlete will represent the United States
in the swimming competition of the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games for
disabled athletes. The September contest will follow the summer Olympics
in Greece.
“I’m
very excited about going,” said Willoughby, a United Methodist who has
been legally blind since birth. “To represent my country again is going
to be awesome.”
Challenges
are nothing new to Willoughby, who also participated in the 2000
Paralympics in Sydney, Australia. She was born with oculocutaneous
albinism, a disorder that also left her without pigment in her eyes,
skin and hair. She can make out larger objects, but cannot distinguish
detail.
“I’ve
been taught, growing up, that nothing good is ever easy, nothing easy
ever shows how good you really are,” she said. “The journey, though, has
been difficult.”
Willoughby
volunteers as a youth counselor at the church where she grew up, St.
Mark United Methodist Church in Birmingham. She sang in the youth choir,
and attributes much of her success to support from the church.
“I
have grown up in a church that has been incredibly supportive,” she
said. “I feel like the church has really kept me grounded and has
basically been that community, that sense of core, that every person
needs to find in order to grow.”
Training
for the Paralympics is rigorous. She is spending her summer at the U.S.
Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, and continues her workouts
during visits to her home in Birmingham.
A UMNS photo by John Gordon
Willoughby is an artist as well as a swimmer, and received an art degree from Auburn University.
Swimming
is not Willoughby's only talent. She's also an accomplished artist and
received an art degree from Auburn University. In the future, she would
like to work as a high school art teacher.
“Right
now, we’re training 12 times a week — some of those times in the pool,
some of those outside the pool in the weight room and doing training and
conditioning exercises,” she said. “We also do mental training outside
of the physical training, mental imagery, to prepare ourselves to swim
our race as we see it in our minds.”
Willoughby
swims nearly seven miles a day, counting her strokes so she will know
where she is in the pool and when to turn. Her mental images include
standing on the podium to receive a medal when the winners are
announced.
She
will face some tough competition. This year’s Paralympics has drawn a
record number of athletes—more than 4,000, representing 140 countries.
But
she believes she has found the right combination to bring home the
gold. “The Paralympic motto is the mind, body and spirit,” she
explained. “And in putting all of those three together, it creates this
entity that can overcome and achieve anything.”
Willoughby’s
swimming career started when she joined a summer league team at the age
of 6. By the time she was 16, she was part of the Alabama state
championship women’s team.
She
has faced doubters along the way. “I’ve had people tell me that I
couldn’t,” she said. “I like to kind of push the envelope a little bit.
I’d much rather just prove them wrong.”
“She’s
a very determined young lady, very powerful person, very
inspirational,” said Joan Wright, a longtime friend and former coach.
“And just a great person, you really just want to be around her. She’s
like a magnet.”
Swimming
is not Willoughby’s only talent. She’s also an accomplished artist and
received an art degree from Auburn University. In the future, she would
like to work as a high school art teacher.
News media contact: Ginny Underwood, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.