An Early Passport And Advice From A Team USA Mentor Set Rachel Keehn’s Summer Off Right

Rachel Keehn did not get instant gratification across the Atlantic Ocean this spring.

Except she did.

Entering April’s Minneapolis leg of the Citi Para Swimming World Series, the 16-year-old S10/SB9/SM10 swimmer made like everyone else, eyeing a position at the 2023 world championships in Manchester, England.

Qualification would have meant three months of gearing up for this year’s definitive event. Alas, Keehn did not receive her international classification in time for the prerequisite final heats in Minneapolis.

However, a timely talk with veteran Jamal Hill helped her realize achievements are not a singular species but a varied genus. Victory, Hill explained, can take the form of classification, qualification, time or podium placement.

“Sometimes the situations that you thought that you wanted but didn’t work out, sometimes it turns out better,” Keehn said. “Because I didn’t get classified at the Minneapolis met, I got the opportunity to go to France.”

That was May 26-28 for the Limoges leg of the world series.

“I was really excited to go because it was really, really sudden,” she said.

One month after U.S. Paralympics Swimming released its world championships roster and two weeks after she obtained her passport, Keehn was raring for redemption, as Limoges featured final races specifically for a youth division.

“I was kind of hoping I would be able to medal in at least one or two of those,” she said.

As it happened, she placed sixth in the women’s 100-meter butterfly final, finishing in 1:16.33. Meanwhile her 2:57.07 finish in the women’s 200-meter individual medley was enough for 11th overall and the best among youth competitors. In the 200 IM youth final, she posted 2:55.45, the race’s only time south of three minutes, good for gold.

“The first race that I got to represent Team USA and my first international outside the U.S. meet,” she marveled two weeks after the fact.

Keehn was speaking to USParaSwimming.org around the time she originally expected her passport to arrive. Its early-by-a-month delivery allowed for her first true triumph with Team USA, which she never would have conceived of as a preteen.

Upheaval, surprise, adversity and resilience are all as central to Keehn’s young saga as swimming. She inherited a competitive streak and passion for the pool from her mother, and joined her first team at age 5.

Starting at 9, after her local program folded, she made frequent 25-mile commutes from her northwest Georgia home to train with the Carrollton Bluefins. Annual state meet berths kept coming while she won three swimmer-of-the-year honors and set four Bluefin records.

While closing on a fifth high mark, Keehn was poised to represent Carrollton in the 200-meter butterfly at the March 13, 2020, state finals. On March 12, 2020, the freshly declared COVID-19 pandemic preempted the meet.

Amid an ensuing monthslong hiatus from action, she first felt the effects of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neuropathy that diminishes one’s muscle tissue and sense of touch.

Keehn’s plight was familiar to her father, who says CMT is present in his maternal bloodline. When Keehn resumed swimming and endured more acute symptoms, a genetic test confirmed she too had it. Her mother acted on Rachel’s despondence over a seemingly dashed dream and found a rebound in the U.S. Paralympic program, plus a fast friend in Hill, who lives with CMT himself.

Coming off a bronze medal at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, Hill met the Keehns at the 2021 Para national championships. He treated them to dinner, cheered Keehn to silver in the women’s 200-meter backstroke and later sent an autographed photo from his Tokyo triumph. He inscribed, “Rachel, this is only the beginning. You’ve got an amazing bright future ahead.”

Darkness intervened again before Keehn could follow up on Hill’s assertion. This past December, while she prepared for her second national championship, two of her closest friends from school were in an auto wreck. One of the girls was killed while the other would endure a long rehab from a neck injury.

But Hill’s availability, in no small part, led her through her grief and back to nationals. There she garnered gold in the 200-meter backstroke and trimmed her time to qualify for the 2023 national team, allowing her to savor another enriching supper with her mentor in Minneapolis.

Since following Hill’s latest wave of encouragement to Limoges, Keehn is keen on a homecoming at the Fred Lamback Disability Meet in Cumming, Georgia, (Sept. 29-Oct. 1), then a couple of Latin American excursions. With Tijuana, Mexico, (Oct. 5-8) currently the last confirmed leg, she hopes to make a third world series appearance in 2023.

But November’s Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile, she said, are “my prime focus.” She already bears qualifying times for a half-dozen races in that capper on the calendar year.

Al Daniel is a freelance features writer and contributor to USParaSwimming.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc. You can follow him on Twitter @WriterAlDaniel.