A World-Class Para Climber, Nat Vorel Is Returning to the Pool to Chase Her Paralympic Dream

Nat Vorel started swimming after watching Michael Phelps and Natalie Coughlin race in the 2008 Olympic Games, but until recently she believed her own shot at Paralympic glory would come in a different sport entirely. 

Vorel is one of the best Para climbers in the world, but when her classification was left off the program of the Paralympic Games Los Angeles 2028, where climbing will make its debut, she made a decision. She returned to the sport that got her dreaming of the Olympics in the first place and will compete beginning in March as one of the newest members of the U.S. Para swim team. 

“(When my classification wasn’t chosen for Los Angeles) I was like, I’m going to have so much FOMO,” said Vorel, 27, from Edmond, Oklahoma. “I can’t stand that the Paralympics are going to be in the U.S. and my friends will be there without me. But you know what? I have a special skill in my back pocket. I’ll start swimming again. That’s something I could go for.” 

Vorel was 10 years old when she watched Phelps and Coughlin dominate in Beijing. She was enamored with all of it — the Olympics, the swimming, the images of athletes achieving their dreams — and that fascination launched her own successful high school career. She became a 2014 Oklahoma state champion in the 500-yard freestyle and earned a spot at Minnesota State swimming for the Mavericks. 

Vorel also discovered a new passion when she started climbing during her freshman year in Mankato. 

“I was out-of-state, it was during my second week, I didn’t have many friends, didn’t really know what I was doing, and I went to the climbing wall,” she said. “I was like, this is it. This is the thing. This is so cool, I love this so much.” 

Vorel left the swim team after two years because balancing athletics and her coursework became too overwhelming, but she continued to climb. Then in 2020, she was climbing outdoors when her protective gear pulled out and she fell 30 feet, breaking bones in her wrist, back and spine and shattering her sacrum. Her left leg remains partially paralyzed. 

Vorel returned to climbing, getting involved in the Para community, and soon began competing. She’s become a dominant force in the sport. Vorel is currently ranked first in the world in her classification, she said, and had a two-year stretch in which she didn’t lose a single competition. She’s been on the U.S. Para climbing national team for five years. 

Meanwhile, she qualified for her first U.S. Para swim team last August after meeting the “C” standard at the Jimi Flowers Classic. She was announced as a member of the “Rising Stars” team earlier this year and will compete in her first two Para Swimming World Series events in Europe in March: Lignano Sabbiadoro in Italy on March 12-15 and Barcelona on March 19-22. 

Vorel’s training includes swimming with a master’s team in Oklahoma City as well as working with a Los Angeles-based coach who gives her work for days when she’s not with the team. She was a distance specialist in high school and college, and although she’ll swim the 400-meter freestyle in Barcelona she’s working more on sprinting. Freestyle remains her favorite. 

Mentally, Vorel said, she’s enjoying the predictability of swimming compared to climbing, where you only have a few minutes to assess a route and make your plan before the competition begins. 

“Swimming, I’m like, ‘I’ve swam a 50 before. I know how to swim a 50, no one’s going to ask me to do anything I’ve never done before,’” she said. 

As she’s continued to dedicate more and more time to training in the pool, Vorel’s also rediscovered her love of pushing through the water and feeling that speed of racing. She’s looking forward to launching her career as a member of the U.S. team in March, getting to know her teammates and, ultimately, pushing for the big goal of being in Los Angeles in 2028. 

“All of this is just so cool because, wow, my 10-year-old self would be so baffled and excited about this,” she said. “And it’s not a redemption arc, but I do feel like I’m getting to find my career in the sport and an actual ending that I’m choosing on my own terms instead of being forced into that position by life things. I’m just so stoked.” 

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.