Koehn Boyd Volunteered At The 2024 Trials. Now He Aims To Swim There In 2028

As the top U.S. athletes competed for their chance to make the 2024 Paralympic swim team this past summer at the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center on the University of Minnesota campus, Koehn Boyd served as a volunteer runner.

His job was to collect the prosthetics and mobility aids left by the athletes at the starting blocks and carry them to where they’d exit the pool at the end of their races. When the U.S. Paralympic Team Trials are next held in 2028, he hopes to be among the athletes competing. And that’s just one of the 15-year-old’s big dreams for his future in swimming.

“Some of my short-term goals would be to continue to accomplish the times I’m getting and push myself in every meet that I go to, but I would definitely say that one of my goals for the future would be to be the first person to swim in the Paralympics and also the able-bodied Olympics,” said Boyd, from Ramsey, Minnesota. “And I would also say to swim at a Division I college.”

Boyd is new to the world of Para swimming. He was classified just prior to the trials, but watching the athletes in action truly kicked his motivation to join them into high gear. He competed at the national championships in December for the very first time and was named the swimmer of the meet after going 6-for-6 in his events.

Boyd was born without abdominal muscles, a rare condition called Prune belly syndrome. He was just the 13th person in the world to have a muscle transposition operation in which surgeons took the top layer of muscle from both his legs and sewed it into his stomach. The muscle is only there to protect his organs, however, and has no function.

“So when I’m laying on my back it is physically impossible for me to sit up,” he explained.

Boyd was about 4 years old during that procedure; he’s had a total of 17 operations during the course of his life.

Balance can be a challenge, but he said the condition doesn’t greatly impact many other aspects of daily life.

“His back muscles have to overcompensate a lot, but it’s just him,” said his mom, Michelle. “It’s interesting how his body has learned to adapt, but he uses the muscles he has.”

Boyd was also born with hip dysplasia and had surgery to correct that at a young age, as well.

As a child, he always wanted to play a competitive sport, but the hip issues made running difficult. Contact sports were out of the question. But swimming was a different story. While the family was still living in Kansas, he tried out for a summer team and learned not only was swimming something he could do but also do well.

“It was really fun,” he said. “I made friends, and I liked it.”

The family moved to Minnesota when he was 9 years old, and he found a higher level of competition in his new hometown. Joining the Edina Swim Club pushed him to go for faster times, and it was through the club that he and his teammates signed up to volunteer at the trials.

“It was fun to watch them race,” he said. “And I got to meet Jessica Long, which was really cool.”

Long and Boyd share something in common besides swimming. While Long was born in Russia and adopted at 13 months, Boyd was born in Ukraine and was also adopted when he was a year old.

Boyd’s condition does impact some elements of his swimming. For instance, open turns are difficult because it’s harder for him to pull his knees to his chest and get his feet to the wall. He’s also not as quick to stand up as able-bodied peers, so the condition impacts his starts.

“But me and my coach (Jeff Rodriguez) have learned how to work through it,” Boyd said. “I have an amazing coach, and he’s helped me learn to fall on my back when I do a turn so it’s easier to get in that position, and we’ve learned to put pressure on the legs so it’s quicker for me to jump off with more power.”

Boyd’s first event at nationals was the 400-meter freestyle S10, which made him a little nervous because he’s in the middle of his short course season. He only trained twice in a long course pool, he said, but he and his coach had a good plan.

“And I put my faith in God, and I think that also helped me to stay calm,” Boyd said.

Not only did he win that first race, but the same day set an American record in the men’s 100-meter butterfly S10 and an Americas record in the men’s 400-meter individual medley S10. On the second day of the competition he added golds in the men’s 200-meter butterfly S10 and the 50-meter freestyle S10, and he wrapped things up with his sixth gold in the 200-meter individual medley.

Four of the six races were personal best times.

Although his favorite event is usually the 200 butterfly, his favorite race at nationals was the 50-meter freestyle because he got to race against two-time Paralympian Jamal Hill, a Tokyo 2020 bronze medalist in the event.

“And I got to meet him after the race, and that was really fun,” Boyd said. “He’s a really cool guy. I watched a video by him, and it was about how he got into Para swimming and how he talked about his disability and how he wasn’t going to be able to go to the Olympics. That really helped me because it took me a long time to come to terms with the way I was created because I’m obviously in an able-bodied sport and exposed to a lot of able-bodied people who can do everything. That video he posted really just helped me realize that how I was made is perfectly fine and acceptable.”

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.