The Twists And Turns Of Tokyo Made For A Memorable Debut For Julia Gaffney

Julia Gaffney smiles on the medal stand during her medal ceremony in Tokyo. (Photo: Joe Kusumoto)

The month leading up to the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 was the most stressful of swimmer Julia Gaffney’s life.

 

There were the typical concerns that went along with training and preparing to travel halfway around the world for the biggest meet of her life. Then there were also the protocols and mounds of paperwork related to Covid-19, not to mention the fear that a positive test could derail everything at any moment. 

 

She got there without a hitch. 

 

That wouldn’t come until she actually got in the pool.

 

But the experience has left the now two-time bronze medalist with a different perspective and understanding of herself as an athlete.

 

“I’m really hard on myself and can have a lot of self-doubt and think, ‘Do I even deserve to be here? Why am I here?’” said the 21-year-old from Mayflower, Arkansas. “Now I realize I do deserve to be there and the hard work I’m putting in is going to pay off. I’ve learned to believe in myself.”

 

What happened in the first heat of Gaffney’s first race — not to mention her best event — would throw anyone.

 

It was the 200-meter individual medley SM7, the event in which Gaffney won gold at the world championships in 2019 and silver in 2017. She touched the wall first, happy with her swim, turned around and looked at the scoreboard.  

 

It said she’d been disqualified. 

 

“I was just like, I don’t know what happened,” said Gaffney, who is a double amputee. “My turns were fine, but I thought maybe it was going to be a turn issue. Then I talked to my coaches and they were still trying to figure it out.”

 

It turns out officials ruled that Gaffney was essentially doing a butterfly kick during the breaststroke. She’d never before been disqualified at a major meet.

 

“Oh, I was definitely crushed,” she said. “But what could I do?”

 

Not much other than regroup for the remainder of her competition, and that’s exactly what she did. Being in a suite with Paralympic veterans Jessica Long, Colleen Young, McKenzie Coan, Leanne Smith and Sophia Herzog helped. 

 

“Jessica told me, ‘Julia, there’s going to be a lot of high highs and a lot of low lows. How are you going to bounce back?’” she said. “I had four other races so I wasn’t going to let that, even though it was my favorite and best event, define the whole meet for me. I had a day off to process everything and the girls were all amazing, like, whatever you need, if you want to talk about it or cry about it, we’re here for you. The next day I came out for the 400 free (S7) rested and just pretended like nothing happened.”

 

She made the final, and as she waited in the call room, Gaffney said, she felt focused and calm. There was no anxiety, no nerves.

 

“I was like, ‘I got this,’” she said. “I was excited. It was the first race I had a final in, so when they called my name I was like, ‘This is it,’ you know? It was really cool.”

 

The first 150 meters, Gaffney was with a Canadian swimmer. After passing her, Gaffney knew Coan was out in front, but she didn’t know where teammate Ahalya Lettenberger or the swimmer from Italy were. 

 

“I tried to look but I wasn’t seeing anything so I was like, I just have to go fast the last 100 (meters),” Gaffney said. “I just tried to put my head down and go.”

 

Coan won, Gaffney took bronze and Lettenberger was fourth. Sharing the podium with Coan, Gaffney said, for her first Paralympic medal was one of the best moments of her life. She also won bronze in the 100-meter backstroke, was fifth in the 50-meter butterfly and eighth in the 100-meter freestyle. 

 

Back home in Mayflower, Gaffney received a hero’s welcome. Her mom told her there was going to be a parade where people were going to drive by and honk, but when the time came the cars were lined up out of her neighborhood, Gaffney said. The police came, government officials were there, people were waving flags and throwing flowers, and she even got to take a ride in a motorcycle. 

 

“It was really cool how a small community can really get together,” said Gaffney, whose family lost their home when a series of tornadoes caused extensive damage throughout Mayflower in 2014. “I really felt the support and love.”

 

Gaffney’s now back in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she’s lived and trained at the Olympic & Paralympic Training Center since graduating high school and spends her downtime either reading or getting Starbucks and going for a drive. She hopes to get back home for the holidays, she said, especially to meet a young swimmer with a disability who’s with the team she joined as an up-and-comer. 

 

“I always had been this little kid looking up to people like Jessica (Long) and McKenzie (Coan) and now I’m 21 and these other little kids are looking up to me,” she said. “It makes me want to keep doing it even more.”

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.