How Sarah Kate Became a State Record Holder, Part 1

Back in September, Sarah Kate’s high school, St. Michael Catholic, hosted a swim meet for all of the Catholic schools in the northern gulf coast region. Coach Cathy was there to assist with the timing system and she told us that Alabama now allows para-swimmers to attempt to qualify and swim at the state swim and dive championships. The para-swimmers compete against a qualifying time based on their paralympic classification, rather than other swimmers, and they swim in a separate event, not with the able-bodied swimmers.

When we returned from Augusta, Sarah Kate had received her classification so her coach and athletic director got to work, contacting the Alabama High School Athletic Association to determine what times she would need in order to qualify. Swim sectionals were just over three weeks away.

A few days later, Sarah Kate competed for the first time using the new breaststroke technique she had learned from Coach Fred at the US Paralympics development camp. The last time she swam the 100 breast was in 2016 and her time was 4:37.72. This time, she did it in 2:25.19. 

We began to wonder – how fast IS she?

We hadn’t heard back from the state yet, so I decided to do my own research to determine what was considered a “good” time for an SB6 swimmer in the 100 breaststroke. I turned first to the National Junior Disability Championship (NJDC) times and was surprised to discover that she was almost 30 seconds faster than the “A” times for the U18 age group. Next, I checked the national qualifying times (technically, the Canadian-American “CanAm” times) and was even more surprised to learn that she easily qualified in the 100 breaststroke – by 13 seconds, in fact. Her coach then confirmed that her 50 yard split on the breaststroke was 1:05.36 – fast enough to qualify her in the 50 breast, as well.

It dawned on me that she IS fast: national-level fast. To qualify to swim at nationals, a swimmer has to qualify in at least two events. In her first swim meet after development camp – in a single event – Sarah Kate had qualified to swim at nationals, and she was only training three days a week.

As you can probably guess, a family meeting followed.

Nationals were in Tucson in December and Sarah Kate really wanted to go – even more so when she learned that her swimming hero and new mentor, Cortney Jordan, was going to be there, giving her an opportunity to meet her in person. The meet was smack in the middle of final exams, however, and ultimately we decided it wasn’t a good time. The Can-Am Para Swimming Championships will be in Vancouver in July and the World Para Swimming World Series will be in Indianapolis in April, so we decided to wait and do one of those instead – with a few months of intense training she might even qualify for more events.

In the meantime, my friend Dawn had nominated Sarah Kate for our local Fox affiliate’s “Young Champions” series and they wanted to come out and interview her for a feature story. If you missed it when I shared it in an earlier post, you can watch it online now.

About a week before sectionals, we were given the state’s qualifying times. They used the NJDC “A” times which meant she should have no problem qualifying in the 100 breaststroke, but her personal best 50 freestyle time was 1/10 of a second too slow and it had been several weeks since she’d been that quick. That event was going to be a challenge.

When we arrived at the venue for sectionals, we were surprised to find that she was seeded in the heat sheet with the other swimmers, not in a separate event or heat, despite what we had been told previously. It wasn’t an issue for the 100 breast, but for the 50 free it was not ideal – it’s such a short race and these swimmers were the best of the best in southern Alabama, so about the time Sarah Kate made it 2/3 of the way across the pool she was going to hit the current of the swimmers going back. When our coach questioned it, she was told that Sarah Kate would swim separately for finals. We didn’t make a fuss; she was the only para-swimmer at the meet so she would automatically advance from the prelims by dint of being first.

As expected, she missed the 48:07 qualifying time in the 50 fre prelim, swimming a disappointing 49:57, but easily made the 100 breast. The next morning at finals, a bit of drama unfolded that led to a call to the state to clarify the rules – the sectional meet director was not going to let her advance to the final in the 50 free because she didn’t qualify the night before. The issue was resolved with only moments to spare: she would be allowed to swim. This time she swam alone, so the lack of current, the adrenaline (and, honestly, a bit of an “I’ll show them!” attitude) led her to a new personal best of 47:05 – more than a second faster than she needed to qualify for state.

Exactly one month earlier, we were preparing to drive to Augusta for her first disability meet just to see how she would do – now she was a national-level para-swimmer and headed to our state swim and dive championships.

Click to Read Part 2…