When the Water’s Fast Enough, Who Needs a Plane?

“If I could have any superpower, it’d be teleportation. I love racing fast — but I really hate getting there.”

If you ask Adin Williams what it's like to be a world-class swimmer, he might first tell you how much he dislikes driving, flying or anything involving travel. But once he's in the water? That's where the magic happens.

Williams got his start in the pool at age three, thanks to his mother’s insistence on swim lessons. By age 10, he was competing with a club team and even tried adaptive track in Portland with Paralympian Blake Leeper.

“Track was cool, but I just didn’t feel like a land animal,” Williams explained.

The turning point came while watching the Olympic Games London 2012.

“I saw the Olympics on TV in 2008 … and then I learned about the Paralympics in 2012. That was the moment it all clicked.”

Four years later, he showed up at the 2016 U.S. Paralympic Team Trials in Charlotte as a wide-eyed 15-year-old with no expectations, just a love of racing and a let’s-see-what-happens attitude.

In 2019, he earned his first U.S. national team nod. In early 2023, he took the plunge — literally and figuratively — by moving to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

“Training full time was a game-changer,” Williams said. “When you go from one hour a day to 20 hours a week, the results start to show.”

And they did. At the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Williams found himself in the finals of the 400-meter freestyle. At the 300-meter mark, he was in dead last. But in a true superhero-style twist, he launched a come-from-behind sprint that earned him the silver medal and a Minimum Qualifying Standard.

“I looked up at the scoreboard and saw a ‘2’ next to my name and thought, ‘Wait … me?’ That was when it really hit me — this is my career.”

It hasn’t all been medals and pizza parties. After being reclassified from S6 to S7, Williams faced tougher competition and mental hurdles.

“There were days I wanted to quit,” he said. “But then I thought about working in an office 40 hours a week and yeah, no thanks.”

In 2024, he was named an alternate for the Paris Paralympic Games. And just when he thought a spot at the world championships might slip away, U.S. Paralympics Swimming selected him via coach discretion.

“That email saved my season,” he said. “It reminded me I still belong here.”

These days, Williams is logging long training sessions in the pool outside Portland, Oregon — six days a week, sometimes twice a day — hitting the gym, and pursuing a graduate degree in legal studies through Purdue Global under a partnership with Guild Education and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

When he’s not training, you’ll likely find him watching soccer, celebrating with pizza or pasta, or dreaming up ways to avoid TSA lines altogether.

“I’d 100 percent choose teleportation as my superpower,” he grinned. “Singapore will be amazing. I just wish I could blink and be there already.”

Through it all, Williams credits his high school, college, and national coaches as well as the Olympians and Paralympians who sparked his dream in 2008 and 2012.

“Had I not seen those swimmers on TV, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

Now he can be that person for someone else.

Swimming may not be teleportation but when Williams hits the water, it sure looks like it.