From Classed Out To Top Of His Class, Yaseen El-Demerdash Is Finally Headed To The Paralympics

Yaseen El-Demerdash spent months visualizing the U.S. Paralympic swimming trials.

“And it ended up being nothing like what I was what I was imagining,” he said, “in like the best way possible.”

El-Demerdash, a 20-year-old from Overland Park, Kansas, planned to swim his heart out at trials, maybe clock a PR or two along the way, and then see where he ended up. As it turned out, the University of Kansas engineering student set personal best times in each of his events and left with one of 33 spots on the U.S. Paralympic swim team that will compete Aug. 29-Sept. 7 in Paris.

In the moments after learning of his spot on Team USA, a smiling El-Demerdash described his emotions as being in a “fever dream.”

“It’s a relief,” he said. “But it’s also very motivating, and I’m excited to get back to work.”

El-Demerdash’s journey to Paris began when he was 7 and first started swimming, but the push to reach these Paralympic Games really began last fall, when he went to Santiago, Chile, to compete in the 2023 Parapan American Games.

The experience itself was “fantastic,” he said, but the same couldn’t be said for his early performances in the pool.

“I went out there and the events that I had prepared for, it didn’t go well. And so that was a bummer,” said El-Demerdash, who was born with Poland Syndrome and is missing a right pectoral muscle. “And then we got halfway through the meet and I was like, I don’t have anything to lose now, so let’s just have fun. And that was when everything started to turn around.”

He ultimately came home with four medals, including gold in the 100-meter backstroke S10.

“The backstroke went really, really well,” he said, “and after that, I was kind of on this high of like, OK, so my training does work. I just need to let my body do what it wants.”

That was the mindset El-Demerdash took to training, which since the start of the year has been at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And it was the same approach he brought into the trials in late June in Minneapolis.

“I really just tried not to set expectations,” he said. “I was like, I’ll show up and have fun and my body will do what it wants.”

Turns out his body wanted to go to Paris.

“It was really inspiring to see my training work out that well, and really motivating,” he said. “But also it let me know that I have a lot more in the tank than I thought. And before Paris, I think we can make a lot more progress.”

Like many Para swimmers, El-Demerdash got his start in the able-bodied version of the sport, and eventually he got pretty serious about it.

His introduction to Para swimming came as a high school junior when he attended the Jimi Flowers Classic in Colorado Springs. He came home with a national classification and an American record in the 200 breaststroke.

Everything seemed to be trending up for the teen. However, dreams of making the U.S. team for the Tokyo Paralympics, held in 2021, took a major hit when he went up for international classification only to be classed out of the breaststroke and, by extension, the individual medley.

“That kind of threw a wrench in my plans,” said El-Demerdash, who was named the 2021 Kansas City Star Boys Scholar-Athlete of the Year. “I’d been training breaststroke for four of five years. That was my bread and butter; that’s why I loved swimming.”

With only about a month to find another event, he still made it to trials — also in Minneapolis — but fell short of making it to Tokyo.

“I didn’t give it my all, and trials kind of showed that,” he said.

So El-Demerdash took a break from the sport, got settled into his new life at KU and, eventually, decided to get back in the pool to pursue the Paris Games.

When talking about his swimming, El-Demerdash often instinctually refers to his performance using we — as in “we ended up PRing,” and “we can make a lot more progress.”

That’s not by accident.

“Arguably my family has sacrificed more for my career than I have,” he said of parents Dina Massoud and Aref El-Demerdash, plus siblings Maryam, Yusuf and Adam. “So I am forever grateful for that.”

He also credits his coaches — in particular Arvel McElroy, Patrick McCloskey and George Leatherman.

“Without my coaches and without my team, I would not be here,” he said.

All of that support buoyed El-Demerdash over many long days in the pool. By the time he arrived in Minneapolis for the trials, the swimmer had one simple goal: empty the tank.

“So leave this meet with literally nothing left,” he said.

Over three days of swimming, he did just that.

“If I came in this morning and didn’t make the team, I would have been content with that because I literally left it all in the pool,” he said following the team announcement, “and so if that performance wasn’t good enough to get me on the team, then it wasn’t meant to be.”

But, he added: “I’m glad it turned out this way.”

Chrös McDougall of Minneapolis has covered the Olympic and Paralympic Movement since 2008. He is a contributor to USParaSwimming.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.