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McKenzie Coan will try to add to her total number of Paralympic medals during the Tokyo games.
By Karen Rosen
Team USA
McKenzie Coan of Clarkesville is headed to the 2021 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
This will be her third trip to the Paralympic Games as part of Team USA.
Coan and 33 other members of the team were named Sunday after national qualifying was held in Minnesota.
Although Coan calls Clarkesville home, she receives plenty of support from Toccoa-Stephens County as her father, Dr. Marc Coan, practices medicine at the Northeast Georgia Physician’s Clinic in Toccoa. Her mother is Teresa Coan.
McKenzie Coan is headed to Tokyo looking to add to the three golds and one silver medal she brought home from the first two games in which she competed.
She’s also hoping to get the world record in the S-7 400-meter freestyle that she’s had her mind set on breaking since the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro.
This past weekend, she swam her best time ever in the event, her 5:04.88 coming in just under the U.S. record of 5:04.87. She won the gold medal in the event in Rio in 5:05.77.
The world record holder is Jacqueline Freney of Australia, with a time of 4:59.02. Coan said ever since she hit the wall in Rio feeling like she could have gone faster the time has been in her sights.
“I think my teammates and my coach are so sick of hearing me talk about it because I, literally, that’s all I think about anymore,” Coan said.
“It’s all I talk about, it’s all I think about. It’s something I dreamed about for such a long time. But it was nice to go best time. I feel like I keep chipping away at it,” she said.
McKenzie was diagnosed at just 19 days old with a condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta, otherwise known as brittle bone disease.
This condition causes Mckenzie’s bones to break easily, and as a result of this diagnosis, doctors said that McKenzie would never walk, never sit upright, never talk, and maybe not even live a very long life.
However, McKenzie’s parents were determined to not have their daughter live a life dictated by other people’s expectations.
McKenzie’s journey in the water started with aqua therapy at 4- years old, and right away she discovered a sense of freedom that she had never felt before.
McKenzie’s two brothers joined the swim team around the same time, and she quickly found herself intrigued to graduate aqua therapy in the baby pool and venture into the big kid lap lanes.
McKenzie swam for the very first time on her own in order to qualify for swim team, and has never looked back since. She loved (and still do) the feeling of proving others wrong when she rolls up behind the blocks in her wheelchair.
When McKenzie was 8, she discovered the Paralympic Games and started her Paralympic swimming career.
For the first time she found herself competing with others who had similar abilities.
By the time she was 11, McKenzie qualified for Paralympic Trials as the youngest competitor at the meet.
After just missing making the US Paralympic Team for the 2008 Beijing Games, McKenzie vowed to spend the next four years leading up to the next Paralympics giving everything she had to qualify.
Fast forward four years to 2012, making it through every obstacle along the way, McKenzie qualified for 2012 London Games by 0.11 of a second in the 400m freestyle, on her 16th birthday nonetheless.
Her Paralympic dreams had finally come true.
At her first Paralympic Games, McKenzie made it to finals, leaving with a sixth place finish.
Already looking ahead to the next Games, McKenzie vowed yet again to spend the next four years preparing to not only re-qualify, but to make it to the podium for Team USA.
In 2016, McKenzie qualified for five events for the Rio Games.
During competition, McKenzie won three golds and a silver.
The 2021 Paralympic Games will be held Aug. 24 through Sept. 5, in Tokyo. – Tom Law of The Toccoa Record contributed to this report.