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Covenanter Earns Position on Paralympics Swim Team
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (May 18, 2004) - Elizabeth Stone of First Evangelical Covenant
Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, earned a spot on the U.S. Paralympics
swimming team by registering two qualifying marks at the U.S.
Paralympics Swimming Trials April 22-24.
A member of the Rockford, Michigan, Riptide Swim Club, Stone
participated in nine events at the University of Minnesota Aquatics
Center. She earned her place in September's Paralympics Games in Athens,
Greece, by qualifying in both the 100-meter backstroke and the 100-meter
butterfly races in the S9 category. In August, Stone and her U.S.
Paralympics swimming team will train at the ARCO U.S. Olympic Training
Center near San Diego.
The 13-year-old attends West Side Christian School in Grand Rapids. She
was born with Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency - her femur is extremely
short - and she had four surgeries to correct the situation. She later
had her foot amputated, according to her mother, Linda. This disability
qualifies her as a S-9 swimmer (those with above-knee or below-elbow
amputations are also in that category).
During the summer at the club level, Stone swims with able-bodied teens
in age-group competitions and competes favorably in most events. At the
recent swim trials, she was pitted against much older competitors, but
still managed to make her mark. In the 100 backstroke, she bettered the
1:25.00 Paralympics qualifying standard twice during the competition and
swam a 1:21.90 in the event finals to finish second behind 18-year-old
Jen Durrant (1:20.03). In the 100 butterfly, Stone swam a 1:24.51 for
third in that event as 27-year-old Kelly Crowley won the race in 1:18.19.
Along with qualifying in two events, Stone set a Pan American record and
broke her own American record in the S9 category with a 1,500 freestyle
time of 22:38.54, her mother added. Last June, she had set the 1,500
mark in Minneapolis while winning three events at the USA Disability
National swimming championships in Minneapolis.
Stone is involved in wheelchair basketball when she's not swimming and
she earned All-Tournament honors in March as her Grand Rapids Junior
Pacers 14-and-under team finished fourth during a national meet in
Philadelphia. She also participated with a high school entry that placed
third in its division.
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