The Journey To A Fourth Paralympics May Have Pushed Colleen Young To Shoot For More

Colleen Young has plenty of wonderful memories from the Paralympic Games, having now competed in four of them.

But one from Paris she’s sure will stick with her is realizing she won the bronze medal in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke SB13 with teammate Olivia Chambers next to her in the pool.

“(Chambers) literally screamed, ‘You did it!’ and hugged me and that’s how I knew I won bronze,” Young said. “That memory I’ll always carry with me.”

Young has been a presence on the international Para swimming scene since she was a young teenager, and has four Paralympic and 12 world championships medals.

But earlier this year, Young wasn’t even sure if she wanted to keep swimming at all.

She’d been dealing with a lower back injury, but her battles weren’t just physical. Now 26 years old, Young has been swimming internationally at an elite level since she was 13. And for a good part of this year, she had a tough time finding herself mentally and emotionally as committed to swimming as she was in the past. The sacrifices felt greater, and she often wondered what life would be like if she wasn’t dedicating herself to training and competing at the highest level.

“I honestly don’t think athletes talk enough about that, because no one can stay motivated 100 percent of the time. That’s not possible,” she said. “Everyone goes through slumps and ruts. This season just happened to be one of my bigger ones. That’s just how it played out. I wish it didn’t, but that’s OK.”

At the World Series meet in Indianapolis in April, Young swam her signature event, the 100-meter breaststroke, in her slowest time at a competition in five years.

“I was like, ‘OK, I’m good. No more,’” Young said. “I was staying with my dad, and I remember going back between sessions and we had a whole conversation about it. And he said, if you retire, you have to have some income coming in. So that’s what I was looking up between sessions was jobs. And I came back that night and swam even slower and was just like, alright.”

The meet ended better than it started, though, and in the days that followed Young did a lot of talking with her family and friends. She knew that she could stop swimming then and there and let fear win, or she could keep going and push the fear aside.

She decided to move from Towson, Maryland, where she’d been living and training, to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and go all in, taking advantage of the long-course pool, the altitude, the weight training, the healthy meals and all the Center had to offer.

“A lot of people in my life told me if I stopped right now, a couple months out (from the Paralympics), I’d never forgive myself and I said yeah, you’re probably right,” she said. “I kept going and I’m glad I did.”

Young swam her fastest time in the 100 breaststroke in a long time at the U.S. Paralympic Team Trials in Minneapolis over the summer. It bumped her seeding up to No. 2 in the world in her classification, and she was selected for her fourth Paralympic Games.

After the prelims for the 100 breast in Paris, Young was seeded fourth for the final. She knew medaling for the third time in a row in the event was going to be difficult. As a visually impaired swimmer, she never really knows where she’s at in a race in comparison to others, and after the first 50 meters she had no idea what place she was in, she said. But she did catch Chambers pushing off the wall next to her and could see her feet splashing.

“So the last 50 I was like, OK, whatever happens, just stay at her feet, and that last 25 that’s exactly what I tried to do and obviously it worked out for the best,” Young said. “At that point in my mind I was thinking, just finish. You just have to get your hand on the wall. Your time isn’t going to be what you want and you know that from prelims, but time aside, just race how you’ve always raced.”

Great Britain’s Rebecca Redfern won gold, but Chambers took second and close on her heels was Young to finish in third.

“When (Chambers said you did it) the first thing I felt was relief, which isn’t the best first feeling to have,” Young said. “I probably should have felt excited and proud. But for so long I put so much pressure on medaling because I’d medaled in that event (in every big meet) since 2013, so being able to keep that streak alive and push myself to be able to do that is definitely something I’m proud of.”

To think of being 14 years old at her first Paralympics is crazy now, Young said. She remembers thinking at the time that she was so grown up and knew exactly what she was doing.

“Looking back now I’m like, girl, you have no idea where life is going to take you,” she said. “And I look at the rookies now and I’m like oh my gosh, they’re babies. That’s crazy. And they’re 16 or 17.”

Young had long said that Paris was going to be her fourth and last Paralympic Games, so she tried to focus on being in the moment, taking in the whole experience and being grateful for where her career has taken her. For now, she’s going to take a break, clear her head and let her body reset. She’ll spend some time reflecting on her past and thinking about her future.

But she’s not so sure anymore that Paris was, in fact, her last go at the Paralympics.

“It didn’t feel like my last,” Young said. “I don’t know how to explain it, but when you know you know. And that did not feel like my last ‘when you know, you know’ swim. Who knows where life will take me?”

Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to USParaSwimming.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.