Skip to player
Skip to main content
Skip to footer
Search
Connect
Watch fullscreen
Like
Comments
Bookmark
Share
Add to Playlist
Report
Team USA on When The Olympics & Paralympics Became Their Goals
SELF Magazine
Follow
6/27/2024
Every Olympian and Paralympian has a moment when they decide to dream big and work towards the games. SELF asked Team USA what moments led them to pursue a spot at the Olympics and Paralympics.
Category
🛠️
Lifestyle
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
It definitely wasn't until later in life, I think people always kind of like had murmurs
00:07
about it with like, oh, you know, maybe go for the Olympics for field hockey.
00:09
And I just like, no, it's not possible.
00:11
Tried out rugby and then it was kind of where it started to become a little bit more possible.
00:15
And but still my coach was like, oh, you know, you can play for the USA team.
00:17
I was like, okay, yeah, it's maybe something but I think it wasn't until like, I would
00:21
say senior of college where I was like, this is kind of something I could do and I was
00:25
doing nursing.
00:26
And so I had to make that decision, like, do I go into nursing, a stable job, stable
00:30
income or do I try this 1% of people to go and be an Olympian and I chose the Olympian
00:35
and I'm very happy I did.
00:37
I think when I first found out that the Olympics were a thing was when I was about six years
00:44
old when I won my first medal.
00:47
My parents kind of talked about the Olympics and then it wasn't until 2008 when I watched
00:52
the Olympics for the first time.
00:53
I was like, that's where I want to be.
00:55
I don't know the exact year, but it had to be 2004.
00:58
I remember being on my grandma's living room and like watching the Olympics happen on TV
01:03
and playing basketball enough to be like, I want to be there.
01:07
I was a stay-at-home dad, couldn't get a job.
01:10
And I saw a guy on TV shooting his bow and that's when I'm like, hey, I'm going to try
01:14
this out.
01:15
Right.
01:16
But it really wasn't until about a couple months later when I went to my first tournament,
01:20
so it had been January, like 2011, I believe, that I was educated about what the Paralympics
01:27
were.
01:28
And then I was like, what is that?
01:29
And he's like, we get to go represent America.
01:32
I'm like, what?
01:33
Competing at the Paralympics became a real goal probably 2016 when I dropped out of college
01:39
to go become a professional swimmer and compete at the Paralympics.
01:43
When did it become a real like attainable reality?
01:45
Okay, there's a real solid chance in reality that we're going to achieve this.
01:51
Probably not until after COVID.
01:52
Had COVID not happened and the game still happened, Tokyo 2020, good chance I would
01:56
not have made the team.
01:57
So Tokyo 2021 was, that was my lottery ticket and we cashed it.
02:02
Competing at the Olympics became a real goal for me when I was in the hospital after my
02:06
accident and then we looked up the dates for Tokyo and I made that decision right there
02:11
and then that I was going to be there.
02:12
Since I was little, it was always a big goal.
02:14
It wasn't really tangible until the second I qualified, to be really honest.
02:19
I went into a senior world championships, the pre-Olympic world championships as a 17
02:25
year old who had never competed in the senior level before.
02:28
It wasn't a feasible thing to go to the Olympics until really I crossed that finish line and
02:33
I look around and saw that I won the race.
02:34
I was 11 years old.
02:35
I was watching the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and I was unbelievably inspired to see athletes
02:41
that looked like me competing on the world stage and it was this out of body epiphany
02:46
universe telling me this is your calling type experience where I told my family, I told
02:50
my friends that I was going to make the Tokyo Paralympic team in four years.
02:54
I was 11 saying this, I would be 15 in Tokyo.
02:57
Honestly, I feel like once I made Team USA, like it was realistic, but once we beat China
03:02
in 2016, right before the 2016 games, you taste what victory feels like and you taste
03:08
what it feels like to actually have your goal come to fruition.
03:12
It's always been the goal like since, for me personally, since I was young and I don't
03:16
even think I knew what sport and then once I kind of started realizing I was good at
03:20
field hockey, I was like, okay, we can actually kind of make this real and then obviously
03:24
once we qualified, I was like, here we go.
03:26
I always said that I wanted to go to the Olympics and it didn't, it always seemed like the right
03:32
path, but I didn't understand how real it could become until probably when I was like
03:37
18, 19, we had an athlete qualify in 2020 for the 2021 Olympics and when that happened,
03:45
it was like someone that was very close to me, I was like, oh, I can do the same thing.
03:50
This can actually happen.
03:51
Competing in the Paralympics became a real goal for me in 2008 because that's when I
03:58
learned about the Paralympics and honestly, I had no idea what the Paralympics was for
04:03
me.
04:04
I had to look it up and Google it and I love the idea of representing something so much
04:10
more than yourself and representing a country and it's not just you out there.
04:14
You have USA and you're united with that and I set out to make those games and I did not.
04:20
I failed short to make those games.
04:23
That's the moment that I didn't really realize until I didn't make that team how bad I wanted
04:28
it.
04:29
When I was 18 and it got announced, when it got announced, the games, it was a whole
04:33
different experience for me because it finally felt like I could compete for something bigger
04:38
than myself.
04:39
I started synchro when I was 5 and when I was 7, I watched the next Olympics and I was
04:47
still on the novice level.
04:48
I hadn't really competed yet.
04:50
I was just really learning how to do synchro still, but I saw the Olympics and I was like,
04:56
I'm going to be there.
04:57
I'm going to be on TV.
04:58
I'm going to be at the Olympics.
04:59
I think getting to go to the Parapan Am Games in 2015 really showed me that Rio and the
05:04
Paralympic Games was a possibility, but I don't think it truly hit me that it was a
05:08
goal until that year when I got named to the team that I really wanted to go to the Paralympic
05:13
Games.
05:14
I've always had Olympic dreams ever since I was little.
05:17
Growing up in Alaska, I had so much community sport from a young age, so people would always
05:21
refer to me as like, oh, Lydia's our little Olympian ever since I was like 10 years old.
05:26
So I just really embodied that and took it with me through the Olympics.
05:29
I actually helped to light my first year of playing wheelchair basketball.
05:33
My coach basically said that he can see me playing at the highest level, and it kind
05:39
of just sparked my interest even more, and I just worked towards that goal with him at
05:44
the early stages.
05:46
It was a natural progression.
05:47
You go to a local meet, qualify for a national meet, and then you go to international competitions.
05:53
And then from there, I was qualifying for competitions that were also Olympic qualifiers
05:58
for Tokyo.
05:59
So once I got into that process, I started to realize this is like a real thing, a real
06:04
goal that I could actually achieve.
06:06
When I realized I'm pretty good at badminton when I was 24, people keep telling me that,
06:17
oh, you should try for Olympics, and you should try to competing that, because I started
06:24
to winning some tournaments when I was like pretty young age compared to right now.
06:30
So that time, I'm choosing to like trying to compete Olympic games.
06:35
I started competing headed towards the Paralympics from a really young age.
06:40
So I started on this team when I was 12, and I mean, even from then, it was the goal and
06:46
the hope would be that I would make the London team, but I never really knew if it was a
06:50
possibility, but my coach really believed in me.
06:53
So then leading into the 2012 games, I made the team.
06:56
And so that was the start of this journey at 16.
Recommended
4:14
|
Up next
Team USA on Representing Their Country at the Olympics & Paralympics
SELF Magazine
7/23/2024
2:58
Who are Team USA's Most Anticipated Competitors at the Olympics & Paralympics
SELF Magazine
7/9/2024
9:15
How Team USA Recovers After Competition at the Olympics and Paralympics
SELF Magazine
5/23/2024
4:26
What are Team USA's Travel Hacks for the Olympics and Paralympics
SELF Magazine
6/11/2024
7:13
How Team USA Finds Motivation to Train for the Olympics and Paralympics
SELF Magazine
6/6/2024
4:52
Team USA on Their Favorite Athletes Growing Up
SELF Magazine
8/1/2024
4:55
What Team USA is Hoping For in the 2024 Olympics & Paralympics
SELF Magazine
6/20/2024
6:19
The Songs Pumping-Up Team USA at the Olympics and Paralympics
SELF Magazine
5/21/2024
4:28
How Do Team USA Celebrate Their Big Wins?
SELF Magazine
7/25/2024
5:15
What Team USA Is Eating at the Olympics and Paralympics
SELF Magazine
5/14/2024
0:42
Olympians are winning houses, cows, and cars with their medals
Fortune
8/1/2024
3:05
Olympic & Paralympic Games Paris 2024: One year countdown has begun
National World - LocalTV
8/2/2023
2:50
What Team USA is Most Looking Forward to in Paris vs Tokyo
SELF Magazine
6/25/2024
3:56
Paralympic Swimmer Jessica Long on Navigating Post-Competition Lows
SELF Magazine
7/16/2024
8:36
Team USA's Routines the Night Before the Olympics and Paralympics
SELF Magazine
5/16/2024
3:35
How Jordan Larson’s Break From Volleyball Prepared Her for the Olympics
SELF Magazine
6/4/2024
1:23
2022 Winter Olympics Preview: Jessie Diggins
Sports Illustrated
9/13/2023
1:24
Hottest Male Olympic Athletes To Watch
Glamour
8/5/2016
2:34
Olympic weightlifters find love in the gym
usatodaysports
3/10/2016
1:05
A 2022 Olympic Team Was Awarded Gold Medals In Paris - Here’s Why
The Spun
2/26/2025
2:35
Olympian Alexa Knierim Is Stronger Than Ever
SELF Magazine
1/23/2018
0:33
McKayla Maroney done with competitive gymnastics
usatodaysports
2/25/2016
3:51
Paralympic Sprinter Jaleen Roberts on Navigating Mental Health as an Elite Athlete
SELF Magazine
5/30/2024
2:07
Team USA eager for Rio Olympics
usatodaysports
4/27/2016
1:27
Olympian Calls Out The Quality Of The Medals At The Paris Olympics
The Spun
2/26/2025